NOTES AND REFLECTIONS 



DURING A 



RAMBLE IN GERMANY. 

BY THE AUTHOR OF 

" RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PENINSULA," 

" SKETCHES OF INDIA," 

" SCENES AND IMPRESSIONS IN EGYPT AND ITALY," 

AND " STORY OF A LIFE." 



SECOND EDITION. 




LONDON: 

PRINTED FOE 

LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN, 

PATERNOSTER-ROW . 

1827. 



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A 



i$ 




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London : 


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Printed by A. & R. Spottisvvoode, 




New- Street- Square. 



PREFACE. 



As I walked about my chamber at Frank- 
fort, pronouncing, with no very felicitous 
accent, the " Ich? " Mich;' " Sick" of the 
German grammar, I remembered the saying 
of Bacon, — " He that travelleth into a 
country before he hath some entrance 
into the language, goeth to school, and 
not to travel." Nevertheless, the un- 
satisfied eye demanded of me that it might 
gaze on Germany, pleading with me that 
it spoke all languages, and could interpret 
all ; and that there was much in all coun- 
tries intelligible to the eye, and to the eye 
alone. With the exception of the cele- 
brated work of Madame de Stael, and 



IV 



the admirable Tour of Mr. Russel, so 
little has been written on the subject of 
Germany, that the most meagre contri- 
bution of a chance traveller in that coun- 
try scarcely needs any apology. My brief 
notices of such places in Flanders and 
Switzerland as I traversed in my route 
belong, of necessity, to the character of a 
volume which is but the personal nar- 
rative of an autumnal excursion on the 
Continent. 

Clave rton Farm, 
Aug. 28. 1826. 



INTRODUCTION. 



It is a pleasant thing to be awakened by 
me morning sun shining in on new and 
unfamiliar objects, and to find yourself in 
the chamber of a foreign hotel, actually 
upon the Continent; your projected tour 
fairly begun, your passport, your pocket- 
book, your purse, safe on the chair beside 
you ; your portmanteau, and sac de nuit 9 
that have safely passed the ordeal of the 
rumpling hand, ready for instant departure, 
or long sojourn, as their master shall de- 
termine ; and cares, packets, and the cus- 
tom-house behind you. 



INTRODUCTION. 



It is a saying of Augustine, that " the 
world is a great book, of which they who 
never stir from home read only a page." 
It is with a delighted attention that we 
gaze upon new objects. Curiosity is 
awakened, and some knowledge is sure to 
be acquired even by the gazer, not indeed 
very profound, but nevertheless of value. 

Calais, Boulogne, and Dieppe have be- 
come of late years half English ; and the 
British traveller hardly feels himself abroad 
in such places. Commend me, therefore, 
as a point of debarkation, to Rotterdam : 
the city is interesting, and the change from 
home and contrast to it are striking. The 
canals are all smooth, and still, and co- 
vered with schuyts. In one of these I saw 
a broad Dutch sailor in a shirt of red flan- 
nel, and big breeches, employed with a 
bucket in dashing water over the bows of 
his craft ; for what I was at a loss to con- 
jecture, seeing that it was already of a clean- 
liness, which seemed to resent the notion 
of its having ever been defiled by use 
heretofore, or designed for it hereafter. In 
fact, were it not for the size of these schuyts, 

12 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

and the dirty red shirts of their guardians, 
you might fancy them mere models- — bright 
brown models for the show-room of an 
arsenal. There is not a bit of brass work 
or a nail-head about them, that does not 
glisten, and the anchors hang over the 
bows as polished as if they were some 
kind of large and noble weapons, not to 
grapple with foul mud, but with a hostile 
galley. 

The city is a strange object ; there are 
many things toy-like about it. If you pass 
a shop, for instance, of a mere huckster ; 
the painted tubs, the cannisters, the mea- 
sures, the scales, are all of a shining neat- 
ness, that you cannot reconcile with the 
idea of their being ever used ; and the red 
unsmiling face of the seated shopman might 
divert the fancy with a playful doubt as to 
his being anything more than some larger 
creation of the ingenious toyman. Thus it 
is with the houses generally: — the win- 
dows, the doors, the posts, the rails, the 
ornamental iron work, are all of a bright- 
ness, at once pleasing and forbidding : you 
doubt if any dare breath on the windows. 

b 2 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

or touch the knockers. The colours, too, 
are all peculiar to the land, — doors, win- 
dow-shutters, sash-frames ; the green, the 
red, the yellow, have a depth, and a kind 
of dull yet rich gravity about them, quite 
different from the like-named colours with 
us. 

Except a few of the old Dutch skippers, 
there is little remarkable in costume. In 
the markets, indeed, some of the country- 
women attract attention by the size and 
form of their ear-rings, and of those large 
plaques of thin gold, or gilt metal at the 
sides of their head ; but the dress both of 
men and women, in their respective classes, 
is a something belonging, strictly, neither 
to that of England or France, but par- 
taking the fashion of both countries. A few 
of the elderly females of the middle class, 
and upper maid-servants of the like age, 
wear the decent dress, which I remember 
in my boyhood to have seen on the same 
classes in old England: — the plain caps 
and frills, the kerchiefs wrapping over the 
bosom, the fair uncovered arm, the round, 
full, nurselike form, and the quiet motherly 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

look, together with their remarkable fair- 
ness of complexion, are very pleasing to 
the eye of an Englishman; and, with many, 
will bring back the thoughts of their nur- 
sery days. 

The inhabitants, generally, look as if the 
busy world had left them behind in the 
race of life, and as if they were too slow to 
recover their lost ground. I was particu- 
larly struck with their late rising, and with 
the slow and measured manner of all their 
labour, — between the hours of five and 
six, on a July morning, I scarce encoun- 
tered a soul, and few houses were open 
when I returned to mine. The sledges, 
which go about with burdens, are drawn by 
large powerful animals with full manes and 
long tails : they are shod in an uncouth 
manner, fitted only for a slow high walk, 
and they seem subdued by situation to an 
unhorselike tameness. On a market-day 
there is a little more stir ; some waggons 
are driven in at a trot, and you instantly 
recognize, in their forms, the vehicles 
which the old Dutch and Flemish mas- 

b 3 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

ters have made us all familiar with. I saw 
few beggars ; and these not in rags, they 
seemed only to ask charity from those in 
the middle class, and their abord was ra- 
ther a coax than a craving, and generally 
ventured on near the beer-house benches. 

I should perhaps have doubted the ex- 
istence of mirth in Rotterdam, if a boat, 
returning from the fair at Brill, had not 
passed under my windows the evening 
before I went away. They were " the 
happy low," and loudly happy ; they 
danced with bent and lifted knees, and 
chins depressed ; they sung out 3 and they 
drowned the softer tabor. Heads were 
thrust from every window, and the sym- 
pathy of good humour shone in all coun- 
tenances as the group floated past, en- 
acting their joy, and apparently rather 
delighted than disturbed by the public gaze. 
But the sounds of joy are few in this city : 
they certainly are not of a cheerful cha- 
racter in the Spiel Huis Straat; through 
which, if you walk after dusk, you will see 
mean curtains hanging before many doors, 
and from the lights behind, and the vile 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

scraping of fiddles, and the discordant roar 
of Dutch sea-songs, you may know those 
wretched places, concerning which so many 
travellers have written, and not a few un- 
faithfully. I believe that they are the re- 
sorts of the very lowest class, and that (in 
Rotterdam) a Hollander of any respect- 
ability is never to be seen in them. If it 
had been possible, in the garb of a gen- 
tleman, to have ascertained their exact 
state, I should unhesitatingly have entered 
them ; for the system is but the remnant 
of a cruel, and once general custom in 
Europe, no doubt imported from the East. 
In our older dramatists, the system of the 
old licensed brothels in London is spoken 
of as nearly the same, and the unhappy 
state of their enslaved inmates is not un- 
frequently alluded to. 

In spite of the tame regularity of straight 
canals, and trees dotted in rows, there are 
many good views in Rotterdam. The Boom 
Quay is a noble street, commanding a 
fair prospect, and the houses are excellent, 
with large handsome windows of plate- 

b 4 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

glass. In many quarters, where you can 
take your stand so as to catch a point of 
view with the water, the house gables and 
their adorned tops, the white draw-bridges, 
the foliage of the trees en masse, and the 
stately tower of St. Lawrence rising above 
all, the effect is truly imposing. 

The view from the top of this tower is 
also a fine thing : the eye ranges over a 
vast tract of flooded country, — over green 
flats, canals, dyke-roads, and avenues of 
trees ; and many towers and spires glitter 
in the distance. 

The suburbs of Rotterdam are not re- 
markable, and the villas would find little 
favour in any eye save that of a retired 
skipper, or a pipe-loving burgomaster. The 
lanes here, and the smaller canals, are less 
cleanly, covered with a green scum, and 
the smell disagreeable. 

The great square, or market-place, is 
adorned with a statue, which does honour 
to the citizens. The equestrian statue of 
a hero would seem ill placed in this still 
city of waters ; a rough admiral, or a rich 
merchant, are the only characters whose 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

apotheosis you would look for in such a 
spot. The figure of Erasmus in bronze, 
in the cap and robe of an ecclesiastic, 
with a book open in his hand, is the fine 
and peaceful-looking ornament of which I 
speak. 

Some of the hot hours of noon may be 
pleasantly passed in looking at the pic- 
tures of Baron Lockhorst. The collec- 
tion is not large or fine, but picture-gazing 
is an amusement of which the true tra- 
veller seldom tires. Dutch paintings have 
a character of uncommon truth. I have 
observed that the rich and the great are 
generally partial to this school, which I 
fancy I can easily account for, and greatly 
to their credit. It would seem they desired 
to have before them faithful pictures of the 
enjoyments of low life, as if to assure them- 
selves (could any of them need such as- 
surance), that they did not possess a mono- 
poly of the means of happiness. Hence 
these endless repetitions of fairs and fire- 
side scenes, and groups of boors smoking 
and drinking; of women cleaning, cook- 
ing, and working at the needle ; of furni- 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

ture, kitchen utensils, provisions ; of red 
glowing fires, and bright burning candles ; 
of old persons counting their money, and 
boys warming their fingers. Dutch land- 
scapes, too, are very delightful. The sea- 
views, the fishing boats, the banks of 
grass, and the living cattle of Paul Potter; 
— the smooth water, the reflected build- 
ings, the clear skies, and the cows, which 
you may touch, as it were, of Cuyp ;,-** 
these private cabinets seen, — a visit paid 
to the public library, and to the room 
where the Academy of Sciences hold their 
sittings, and where I saw some good in- 
struments, and bad portraits; — these things 
all done, I departed, taking the route of 
Flanders, 

I must not, however, leave Rotterdam 
without recording one pleasure I enjoyed 
there new to me, and therefore, perhaps, 
so prized at the time, and thought upon so 
often since with a treasured delight;- — I 
mean the sound of the carillons. I shall 
never forget it : they strike out upon the 
silence, with a sweet and silvery promise 
in their beginning, —and thrill you ; — then, 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

suddenly, in the very midst of their kind 
music, they break off, and leave you, — sad, 
— happily sad.* 

I left Rotterdam for Antwerp in a steam- 
packet; the passage was delightful. The 
light throb of the heart is, for a moment, 
checked, if you chance to look into a 
guide-book, as you approach Dort ; for 
there you find that you are sailing over the 
ruins of seventy-two villages, which, with 
all their inhabitants, were destroyed by an 
eruption of the rivers, in 1421 :■ — but the 
quick rushing of the vessel carries you 
soon away from the spot, and the vain 
emotion of a vainer sorrow is willingly 
dismissed. 

The distant view of Antwerp, as you ap- 
proach it up the Scheldt, is lordly. The 
lofty tower of the cathedral, glorious and 
pinnacled, rises above the city of its chil- 



* Dr. Burney styles the carillons, in a forceful and 
contemptuous expression, "corals for grown gentlemen." 
In the face of this great authority, (who, by the way, 
disputed the merit of Handel,) I confess myself a grown 
gentleman, as pleased with them as ever baby was with 
its silver bells. 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

dren,with inconceivable majesty and beauty. 
It is noble, noble ! You wish the deck 
clear, or silent ; — it is an object to gaze 
at, and fetch your breath. You land on a 
spacious quay, — you pass into a square, — 
and, as you pause there, where an angle 
opens upon the near view of the proud 
cathedral, with its air of Gothic grandeur ; 
and as you look around upon ancient 
houses, magnificent palaces, and sumptuous 
public edifices, you feel it to have been a 
fitting scene for tapestry and trumpets, 
and those grey war-horses that the great 
Rubens was wont to take delight in paint- 
ing. 

I no sooner reached my hotel than I 
procured a cabriolet, and drove out of the 
city, and in part round the works. En- 
tering again, I found the garrison on the 
glacis at drill, a great part in squads, with- 
out their arms. They were Swiss, fine, 
clean, healthy looking men, and well 
clothed. Had their clothing been scarlet, 
I should have passed them in the Phoenix 
Park with as little notice as a regiment of 
my own countrymen. There is one point, 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

in which the features of resemblance among 
nations are uniform over all Europe ; and, 
however manners and customs may other- 
wise differ, I suspect a barrack-yard is the 
very same thing, presents the same ob- 
jects, and its drill is conducted upon the 
like system at Moscow and Dublin. I 
drove to the citadel, and asked the Serjeant 
of the guard leave to go upon the ramparts. 
Every thing had an air of abandonment and 
neglect ; the barracks looked in ruins, with 
few shutters or windows ; the grass in the 
square ragged, and guns lying about dis- 
mounted. The orderly, who accompanied 
me, was a Swiss, had served fourteen years, 
and was just going to receive his discharge. 
There was a sincere joy in the man's lan- 
guage, confirming the existence of that sen- 
timent which is said to be the feeling of all 
the natives of that romantic land, whom 
fate holds in absence from her attaching 
scenery. 

The docks are magnificent works, the 
larger basin capable of containing forty sail 
of the line. The idle ships that lay there, 
waiting for cargo or repairs, had peaceful 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

names, and came from busy places. The 
Hope and the Providence, the Venture and 
the Endeavour, from Boston and New 
York, from Hull and Sunderland, fill places 
designed by Napoleon for such a navy of 
thunderers as he was never to be possessed 
of. The work, however, is worthy of a 
name and reign that shook the world. 

The interior of the cathedral fulfils all 
the promise of its outward aspect. It is a 
consecrated grove of stately columns and 
branching arches. It has space and light- 
ness, and its gloom is of the softest ; it 
may truly be called a " solemn temple." 
The clear voice of the young choristers 
wandered tremulously along the vaulted 
roof, and fell upon the ear in weak but 
mellow warblings. I enjoyed the anthem 
leaning against a huge pilaster, whence I 
could gaze undisturbed on that master- 
piece of Rubens, the Descent from the 
Cross. This, and the other two famous 
pictures in this church, have been often de- 
scribed ; they detain you long, and are 
quitted with a reluctant step, and a back- 
ward regard. There are innumerable figures 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

in this cathedral, sculptured in wood, the 
first of their kind that I had ever seen. 
They have no quaintness, but are exe- 
cuted with as much care as if the artist 
had wrought in marble, and for elegance 
of proportion and propriety of expression 
are remarkable. The countenances of 
some, indeed, are of a very soft and pleas- 
ing beauty. 

The church of St. Jacques is rich in ob- 
jects of interest, but that which more par- 
ticularly attracts the stranger is the chapel, 
dedicated to the memory of Rubens : his 
ashes rest below the altar, the tombs of his 
family around. The chapel is adorned 
with precious marble, the altar is of the 
like material. Above it is placed a picture 
by this master, which I consider a most 
enchanting production. It represents the 
Infant Jesus on the knees of his mother ; 
St. Jerome, St. George, two females, and 
an aged bishop, make up the groupe. The 
Infant is of uncommon loveliness ; there is 
a radiant glory in its smile, and the con- 
trast of its little tender form, with the brown 
and wiry figure of St. Jerome, is most 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

happy. The manly St. George and the 
two handsome females, said to be portraits 
of Rubens and two of his wives, are finely 
placed. The bending bishop, with his 
grey beard, offering the kiss of adoration 
to the little child, and the expression of 
the virgin mother, complete the subject ; 
and the effect of it, as a whole, is per- 
fect. 

The Museum has some very fine pictures 
by Rubens and Vandyke. The Commu- 
nion of St. Francis by the former, and 
Christ on the Cross, with St. Catherine 
and St. Dominic mourning, are fine paint- 
ings : the latter has a depth of expression 
which saddens every beholder. I never 
look upon such a picture that I do not feel 
the value and high dignity of the painter's 
art. If the deep notes of the solemn 
organ, — if the melancholy music of Mil- 
ton are suitable to awaken and inflame 
that better spirit within us, which is the 
most precious gift of Heaven, assuredly 
the like noble purpose is attained by 
creations on the canvass, which place before 
our very eyes those once acted and awful 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

scenes, to which our contemplation can 
never be directed without benefit. 

There is a fine cabinet of paintings at 
Mr. Von Lanckner's. Among many nobler 
pieces are two fine Wouvermans ; the one a 
Pillaging, the other a Fishing Scene, — both 
wonderful works, — the former the most 
interesting : it is like reading a chapter 
of minute and finished description from 
one of the Waverley novels to stand before 
either. 

Antwerp is a place that I should prefer 
as a residence- far before Brussels. I like 
its long and lonely streets, and the solitary 
figures that cross them, wrapped in the 
black mantillas of Spain. The very sounds 
and the very smells are Spanish, — small 
chimes from every tower, and the smell of 
incense issuing from the door of every 
church and chapel. I mean not to rejoice 
in a picture of decay, or to express plea- 
sure at the thought that a population, once 
200,000, has now dwindled to 50,000 ; that 
of 9000 houses the half should be un- 
tenanted ; and that, of its 2\ c 2 streets, so 
many should never echo to the passing 

c 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

step ; but that as things are so, the lover 
of solitude, and the dweller with silence 
might find there lessons of improvement, 
and causes of contentment. 

Brussels is white and bright : the allee 
verte, by which you approach it, is broad, 
green, and pleasant. The palace of Laken 
stands well. The park and the place royale 
have a character of great magnificence. 
But were it not for that fine old Gothic 
edifice the town hall with its fret work, and 
windows, and tall tower ; and also for the 
old church of St. Gudule, I should not 
have felt any great pleasure in the scene. 
The traveller, however, will find in this 
city a gallery of paintings rich in quaint 
old pictures, and full of amusement. 

To the Englishman, Brussels has one as- 
sociation of undying interest. It was in 
her chambers our countrymen girded them 
for the battle, in her squares and streets 
they mustered, and out of her gates they 
marched to that last mighty contest, which 
won peace for the world. I drove to the 
memorable field. The road has that grave 
aspect and those shades that belong to the 



ixtrodvction. if) 

forest scene. The axe of the wood-cutter 
was the only sound which broke the still- 
ness, save once where I met a groupe of 
fine stout ruddy boys playing as they walked 
along. None of them seemed above ten 
years of age, most probably none of them 
born even, when the battle of Waterloo 
was fought. The man by my side did only 
recollect that English soldiers were in 
Brussels when he was a little boy, that they 
had bands of music, and that their dress 
was red. The Waterloo laurels still are, 
and ever will be green, but most of the 
locks on which they have been wreathed 
have long ere this turned grey. 

Waterloo is no longer a theme to dwell 
on, — the praise of its heroes has been 
hymned by many, and the loftiest harps, 
and the action and the scene live to the 
eye of Him who has read " Paul's Letters 
to his Kinsfolk, 5 ' I passed over the field 
with these aids in my head, with the me- 
mory of other battle scenes present to my 
fancy, and with Le Coster for my guide, — 
the veritable Le Coster (for there are many 
counterfeits). He is an erect robust man of 

c 2 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

a dark complexion, a little pitted with the 
small pox, and with black intelligent eyes, 
If he was fifty-three years of age in 1815, 
he appears little older at this hour. 

The farm-yard of La Haye Sainte looked 
like any other; poultry were clucking and 
pecking up their food, and a young foal 
neighing for its dam. A ploughboy, who 
could have little remembrance of 1815, 
opened to let us out, that very same gate, 
at which on the day of the battle the 
French forced their entrance, and bay- 
onetted all the gallant Hanoverians whom 
they found within. Shot holes in the gate 
itself, and on the walls near bear record of 
the struggle. 

Hougoumont is still a ruin, and many of 
the trees that were in front of it have been 
cut down. The aspect of the spot, there- 
fore, is somewhat altered. The terrace re- 
mains, as do two damp and ruined alcoves, 
which have never since that day been used 
as such pleasant places are meant to be. 
The orchard is still green and fruitful ; a 
yard with some repaired outhouses is oc- 
cupied by the servants of the farm ; and a 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

poor woman, with two children having 
smiling eyes and red cheeks, came out to 
receive the customary gift. I could well 
image to myself the hot assault, and ob- 
stinate defence of this post; and I thought 
upon the scene it must have presented that 
evening. The thirsty wounded, and those 
mournful roll-calls, where the Serjeants 
pause at many names in succession, and the 
manly and prompt " Here" in familiar 
tones is listened for and waited for in 
vain, — to be heard never again. 

I went regularly and leisurely over the 
field. It was much to stand alone with 
Le Coster on the very spots on which Na- 
poleon had trodden during this mighty 
combat. The point to which he last ad- 
vanced is that of the deepest interest : it 
was as far as general could go. Many 
think that he should have fallen at the head 
of his old guard, but the moral of his his- 
tory is in far better keeping as it now 
stands. It appears to me that they who 
pass judgment against the generalship of 
Napoleon throughout the movements di- 
rected by him, from the twelfth to the 

c 3 



2 C 2 INTRODUCTION. 

eighteenth, deal hardly with his fame. It 
was surely no small exhibition of talent to 
compel the Prussian and British command- 
ers to fight him on two different days, 
and in two separate fields of battle. The 
victory of Waterloo was gained by the iron 
bravery of our troops, and by the firm high- 
minded moral courage of the Duke of 
Wellington. Never was that higher order 
of courage more largely wanted, or more 
brilliantly displayed. 

As to the confusion in which the French 
fled in the evening, Bonaparte in the last 
advance set his all upon the cast. Reserves, 
and supports, and dispositions for retreat 
belonged not to such a thought, or such a 
position of affairs. If British officers of 
judgment, experience, and intrepidity, 
could (as some of them did) feel a doubt 
about the issue of a contest, which even, 
if fatal, would have left England laurels 
yet brighter than those of Fontenoy, we 
may yet, perhaps, thank the god of battles 
that the reckless resolution of Napoleon, 
at the close of that day, had not been made 
at the beginning. 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

" The lot is cast into the lap, the whole 
disposing thereof is of the Lord." King- 
doms and cottages, princes and peasants 
alike the objects. The man beside me, 
who had been dragged in reluctant alarm 
before the emperor, and compelled, with a 
beating heart and a bowing head, to ac- 
company him throughout the battle, by 
this very circumstance has become pos- 
sessed of more money and land than he 
ever dared to hope for ; has a thriving fa- 
mily, and the grateful joy of his heart 
keeps him hale, cheerful, and strong.* The 
defeated king has closed a life of bitter 
exile in the grave. 

It was late, and chill, and dusk when I 
drove back to Brussels : remembered poetry 
is the solace of such hours. 

From Brussels I went to Namur, a place 
of much interest ; thence by a beautiful 
route to Givet and Charlemont. On the 
road I saw a peasant's fete: they were 
dancing stoutly on the sward, and their 
orchestra sate in a waggon — a picture of 
Tenier's realized. 

* Le Coster is now dead, 
c 4 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

I visited Mezieres, Sedan, Verdun, Metz, 
Thionville, Luxemburgh. Metz is a fine 
city : many historical recollections are 
awakened in it, as also at Thionville. At 
the inn here I found a young German 
troubadour. He sung ballads for me, ac- 
companying himself on the guitar. It 
came to my thought as he sung, standing 
humble in the corner of the saloon, how 
differently at the old court of Charlemagne, 
a man with such a voice and touch had 
been received (my fellow traveller making 
light of him). For myself, the humblest 
itinerant musician can delight me. The 
road to Luxemburgh has woods, plateaux, 
positions bringing wars and military names 
to your mind. Among the latter, that of 
the great Duke of Alva returning de- 
feated from Metz. Luxemburgh is a strong 
fortress, and a most romantic spot. There 
is a garden suburb in the gorge, or rather 
at the head of the ravine, above which 
Luxemburgh is built, the situation of which 
is peculiar and beautiful. The whole ex- 
cursion from Brussels was delightful. Part 
of the way I crossed legs in a diligence 



INTRODUCTION. c 25 

with the blood-red trowsers of a young 
French officer of the Chasseurs-a-cheval, 
and found French military talk at all the 
tables-d'hote. From this point I entered 
Germany. 



NOTES AND REFLECTIONS 



IN A 



RAMBLE TO VIENNA, 

in 1825. 



The common sounds in the cities of Ger- 
many are the clangour of military bands, 
the ringing of iron boot-heels, and the 
measured tread of stately soldiers. These, 
at certain hours of the evening, are varied 
by the full deep chorus of the slow-sung 
hymn, or, among the assembled youth of 
both sexes, by the soft and pleasing move- 
ments of the waltz. The sights every where 
correspond with the character of these 
sounds, and both are found on the very 
threshold of the land. 

The approach to Treves from Luxem- 
burgh is singularly beautiful ; the Moselle 



28 GERMANY. 

bears you company ; the vale through which 
it flows is flat and fertile, while on either 
side rise hills,lofty enough to be picturesque, 
and lovely, inasmuch as they are fruitful, 
being for the most part laid out in vine- 
yards. 

The city lies in the narrowest part of the 
valley, and shows fair. The suburbs are 
prettily scattered, east and west of it, and 
are adorned with several large and fine- 
looking churches. 

" Ante Roma fhit, stetit Teveris," says 
a proud inscription in the great square ; 
a very fine old ruin, standing at a short yet 
imposing distance from the spot, compels 
the reverence of the traveller, and confirms 
the pride of the citizen. They tell you 
that it was used as a Hall of Assembly by 
the ancient Gauls, and, in after times, by 
their Roman conquerors, as a Capitol. 
Whatever doubts disturb or destroy such 
illusion afterwards, for the moment the 
vain tradition gives pleasure, and assists the 
memory in her backward flight. But Treves 
has a great charm for the unaccustomed 
eye; — the whole place is an antique; — 



GERMANY. 29 

the houses are of quaint irregular forms, 
all sizes, all shapes, and of no order ; here, 
a little old bay- windowed yellow house, 
leaning fairly on one side ; there, a tall 
bright-red mansion, with carved window- 
frames, and high masking fronts of every 
variety. Peasant women, too, pass across 
the square, with stiff white caps, flat as the 
forage-caps of Austrian dragoons, which, 
seen at a distance in the fields, they greatly 
resemble, but, nea? , you recognize them at 
once as old acquaintances, — as a costume 
familiar to the eye in engravings from Al- 
bert Durer, and the old masters of his day. 
The nearest shop-window exhibits no books 
for sale, but volumes of forbidding black 
letter, in which the unalterable German 
will go on reading his rich but rugged 
tongue for ever, in utter contempt of the 
fair Roman character, which all the other 
nations of Europe have, by common con- 
sent, adopted. 

I like the German, however, the better 
for this, and the very sight of the type in 
which old Chaucer was imprinted, begets a 
kind feeling in the bosom of the English 



30 GERMANY. 

traveller towards the country and the people 
he is about to visit. It is not a little 
remarkable to observe, how much among 
these people the French had found it im- 
possible to change. Although for nearly 
twenty years Treves had been the chef lieu 
of a department under the republic, and 
the empire of France, yet was there no 
sound in the streets but German, and in 
several of the shops which I entered, they 
could not reply to a question in the French 
language. 

The principal hotel, the Maison rouge, 
was full, and I could only find place in the 
Hotel de Venise. Here I got an excellent 
apartment, and was civilly treated. How- 
ever, not one servant in the house spoke 
French, so that here my amusing but easily- 
mastered difficulties began. I arrived time 
enough to take an evening saunter round 
the city. In the cabarets I heard good har- 
monious singing, as I passed them by, and 
I met soldiers at every step. The fields 
and gardens were balmy and still ; but, 
here again, soldiers. I met some squadrons 
of cavalry returning from their watering ; 



GERMANY. 31 

and afterwards, in a more retired lane, 
three young officers, riding in that quiet 
way the Germans love, As I passed home- 
wards, I made for a stately building that 
looked like a palace ; it was formerly the 
Prince Bishop's, now the barrack of Prus- 
sian lancers. 

The day following was a grand holiday, 
being the king of Prussia's birth-day. Few 
of his Majesty's subjects enjoyed it more 
than I did. It is a fine old cathedral, the 
service was well performed, and the instru- 
mental music excellent. I felt a strange, 
stirring delight as, in parts, the harsh brattle 
of the drum, and the stern notes of the brazen 
trumpets, mingled with the solemn song of 
praise. It was impossible to rein the fancy, 
and she was busy in other scenes, — scenes 
naturally suggesting themselves to a sol- 
dier's mind, and forming a very painful 
and exciting contrast to that before me, 
where quiet citizens, and gay-dressed wo- 
men, and happy school-boys, were crowded 
opposite the choir, all eye and ear. There 
was a grand parade of the troops, after 
high mass, for divine service, according to 



32 GERMANY. 

the Protestant form of worship. There 
were three battalions of infantry, and a 
regiment of lancers. These were formed in 
a very compact, deep square, the lancers 
mounted, exactly filling the outer faces. 
Nothing could possibly be conducted with 
greater decency or propriety than this ser- 
vice : there was no haste, no irreverence, 
throughout the whole ; a great part of the 
soldiers used their prayer-books, and num- 
bers knelt. At certain parts all the troops, 
both horse and foot, sate, stood, or kneeled, 
bareheaded. The music was very solemn. 
A hymn sung by a vocal band produced 
a moving and sweet effect. At the close 
a sermon of some length was delivered 
by the chaplain, with considerable earnest- 
ness of manner. He wore on his head 
that square old cap which the reader may 
have often seen in the engraved portraits 
of our martyrs : it was altogether a fine 
picture. The very instant the worthy man 
concluded his discourse, at a given signal, 
the artillery fired their thundering salutes ; 
the troops deployed, formed in open co- 
lumn, and marched past. I placed myself 



GERMANY. S3 

directly in rear of the General, and close to 
him. The men were uncommonly clean, 
well set-up, young, and handsome ; the 
bands were loud-breathing and martial ; but 
the very tread of the platoons was music ; 
and they turned their full, proud eyes on the 
General, after a noble manner, that filled 
mine with thick and dimming tears. I 
shook twenty years from my shoulders as I 
thought upon my first review, and the then 
swelling of my fresh and hopeful heart. 

The General was a little man, grave, and 
grey-headed, with clear, intelligent eyes, 
and sate quite erect on his charger, a ches- 
nut horse, of the exact cut of that which 
old Fritz, of glorious memory, is always 
represented as mounted on, — a Prussian 
cornet, perhaps, of the day, when the black 
eagle was the terror of battle-fields. Those 
times have passed away, — all must wonder 
how, as they look upon the firm march, the 
free carriage, and the brave bearing of the 
soldiery of Prussia. It is, however, here 
necessary to observe, that the obligation 
now imposed on every subject of that king- 
dom, to serve in the ranks of her army for a 



34 GERMANY. 

given period of three years, or never less 
than one, is felt and complained of as a 
heavy grievance, — I think with reason. 
Sure I am that a large number of young 
persons are returned into the bosom of civil 
society very ill fitted to pursue peaceful and 
laborious occupations in humble content- 
ment ; while others again are compelled, 
for a season (and that the most important 
of their existence), to a mode of life, a dis- 
cipline, and a treatment, which they find 
irksome, revolting, and abhorrent. I par- 
ticularly allude to the poorer gentry, and 
persons in the easy middle class, — or rather, 
perhaps, I should say, to the parents of the 
youths taken from these classes, who have 
not the wish, perhaps, certainly have not 
the hope, of seeing their sons commis- 
sioned as officers, and are alike pained and 
alarmed for their morals, and their happi- 
ness, when taken from under their own eye, 
and placed among the chance-companions, 
which regiments thus composed must fur- 
nish. This universal soldiership is as- 
suredly a curse ; the enlisting of men for a 
term of many years forms better soldiers, 



GERMANY. 35 

and spoils fewer citizens. I mean not by 
this to speak of regular soldiers as more im- 
moral than other classes of society ; for I do 
not think this often-hazarded assertion to be 
true. In all good corps soldiers are looked 
after by their officers like children, and they 
very soon become well conducted, if not 
from the highest motives, yet from habit, 
and for peace-sake : but the case is, of ne- 
cessity, widely different, where men, all 
young, are gathered together for a short 
period of service, oftentimes with more 
money at their command than a private 
soldier ought ever to be possessed of, and 
with smart uniforms, personal advantages, 
and a handsome carriage, become the ob- 
jects for low gamblers and designing fe- 
males to fasten on and destroy. Doubtless 
many such, their " three years of heroship 
expired," return to their homes lost and 
polluted men, and spread wide the taint of 
immorality. 

I walked in the evening up a hill to the 
south of the city, turning, as saunterers do, 
at every fifty paces, to look down upon the 
fair valley beneath. I wonder not that, at 

d 2 



36 GERMANY. 

a very early period, the clarissimi Treviri 
stayed their wandering camp, and fixed it 
here ; for nothing can be more pleasant 
to the eye than this fertile and well-wa- 
tered plain. As I was gazing on this pros- 
pect, I heard a little murmuring of young 
voices, in a hollow way, near the field in 
which I stood, and, going to the bank, I 
saw a family, consisting of three little girls 
and their mother, walking up the steep 
lane, slowly and singly, the youngest first, 
their hands joined together, and pointing 
upwards, and their rosaries hanging down 
from them. The children had fair hair, 
that fell in braids, and voices clear and in- 
nocent. The mother was mantled and 
pale, and moved her lips in deeper and 
sadder tones. I followed at an undisturb- 
ing distance, and marked them gain a rude 
shrine of the virgin. They stood before it 
long, repeating prayers, and they bowed 
down, and kneeled in the dust. It was the 
sun-set hour; when they passed away, I 
went to the spot, Nothing could be ruder 
than the image of our lady. In a guide- 
book on Treves, which I had read that very 



GERMANY. 37 

morning, were these lines quoted from 
Lucan, as descriptive of the religion of 
their earliest ancestors : — 



" Simulacraque moesta Deorum 
Arte carent, caesisque extant inform ia truncis. 



Perhaps then, as now, the widowed heart 
found in its pilgrim walk to a rude and 
shapeless image like this, only called by 
another name, some comfort, and a peace 
permitted by, or rather given from, heaven. 
The sighing service of sorrow is always, I 
believe, heard, and speeded by angels and 
ministers of grace. 

I passed down through vineyards to the 
ruins of an ancient Roman theatre, which 
have been well cleared out, and may be 
very distinctly traced. Thence, in the greyer 
dusk, I walked homewards. My steps were 
arrested, for some minutes, near a summer- 
house, by the sound of soft waltz music. As 
I entered the dark streets the windows were 
shaking to the doubling drums and piercing 
trumpets of the garrison. They ceased, 
and in a short moment the city was hushed 

d 3 



38 GERMANY. 

and silent. Such days the traveller does 
not readily forget. I was dragged in one, 
however, and glad to be so, from Treves to 
Coblentz. The better way, if the season 
admits of it, is to take a boat, and drop 
down the river Moselle, an excursion which 
I am told is very delightful and rewarding. 

The descent into the valley of the Rhine, 
as you approach Coblentz, presents a most 
noble scene. I had reason to rejoice that I 
was disappointed of finding quarters at the 
great hotel in the square, for the window 
of my chamber at " Les trois Suisses" 
looked out upon the glorious Rhine, and 
up to the castled rock of Ehrenbreitstein. 
I was long before I could leave the case- 
ment to satisfy my appetite at table in the 
salon, and I gladly returned to it. The 
moon sailed high and bright among clouds 
that, at times, for a minute, shadowed her, 
and gave an indescribable sublimity to the 
stern and stately fortress, and to the flow- 
ing river, as it rolled darkling beneath the 
deeper and blacker shade of the scarped 
rock. I slept to open my eyes on the 
same glorious objects, seen clear in the 



GERMANY. 39 

sober colours of a dawning summer's day. 
I rose immediately, and walked up to 
the height, called Williamstadt, from the 
works erected there. The prospect from 
it is wide and various, and full of such 
glory as meeting rivers and broad vales of 
cultivation, enlivened by towns and vil- 
lages, must ever display. Moreover, here 
there are blue mountains in the distance, 
and nearer, a vista of the Rhine descending 
between lofty hills, picturesquely broken in 
their forms, and crowned with grey and 
shattered towers, and chapels still white 
and in honour. The leisure walking about 
Coblentz I found very delightful, from the 
novelty of the scene, and the new impres- 
sions of the people, which my eye gathered 
for me as I sauntered through the streets. 
I like a market-place every where, especi- 
ally in a foreign land. I like to see peasant 
women in the costume, which their great- 
great grandmothers have worn before them. 
The females of the lower orders here have 
a coarse, hardy handsomeness ; their fair 
complexions have been sunburned in har- 
vest-fields, and their flaxen hair yellowed 

d 4 



40 GERMANY. 

in summer labours : they force it back from 
their cheeks and temples, and confine it 
behind beneath a small coif, or caplet of a 
gilt tissue, or some flowered pattern ; and 
their countenances, naturally open, assume 
an expression of honesty very prepossessing. 
There is a fearlessness of regard altogether 
distinct from immodesty, and there is a 
something very guileless in their manner 
of meeting and talking with each other. I 
stood long in oneof the streets before a shop- 
window filled with pipe-heads : the devices 
painted on these have an infinite variety, 
and are generally executed and finished 
with great neatness and taste. They fur- 
nish you with a very pleasing feature in 
the German character ; the city of his 
birth, the leader after his heart, the patron 
saint, or the revered reformer, the poet, 
the painter, the hill, the stream, the flower, 
that best he loves, is borne by the German, 
figured on the pipe, from which he is never 
separated, wander where he may, as a trea- 
sured possession, — a talisman of happy 
power. 



GERMANY. 41 

I attended a public concert in the even- 
ing. The performers were few, but excel- 
lent — the ensemble perfect. A female from 
the Opera at Breslau sung two Italian airs 
correctly, and well, but not at all to charm. 
There was enough in the room, however, 
to charm any observer. Some of the young 
German girls of eighteen appeared to me 
simple in both manner and dress as our 
children ; no effort at display, — hair with- 
out other adornment than the falling braids, 
and round the waist the sash, the broad 
riband sash. Whither has it fled, ye gentles 
of England ? whither has this lightest and 
most graceful of zones fled? and by what 
has it been replaced ? The ladies were all 
seated; several of the gentlemen stood. 
Against the wall leaned a group of Ger- 
man youths, and boys ; many of them from 
sixteen to eighteen years of age, yet they 
wore the open neck, — the white, and fall- 
ing shirt-collar : their shining hair hung 
down long and waving, and was just parted 
on the forehead ; their fine complexions, 
and expressive countenances, varied to each 
movement, and their eyes were affection- 



42 GERMANY. 

ately fixed on the performers with a jealous 
intentness, lest they should lose a single 
note of the music. The silence of a German 
audience in a concert is perfect; the re- 
proof of even the slightest rustle may be 
read on every forehead throughout the as- 
sembly. In the interval between the acts 
the conversation is cheerful and buzzing. 

At the close I returned to my table 
d'hote, where I had occasion to observe 
that exact contrast of character, which 
all societies present, but none more fre- 
quently, and in greater strength, than those 
composed of military men. At the upper 
part of the table sate two Prussian officers, 
engaged in conversation, whose minds and 
hearts looked out from their eyes after the 
noblest manner; at the bottom sate two 
younger officers well dressed, and not ill 
looking, conversing with loudness, and 
having essentially vulgar minds. This, 
without understanding three words spoken 
by either party, I would have staked my 
bottle of Laubenheim, and pleasant Seltzer 
water upon. One word to such travellers, 
as, bringing with them, from English uni- 



GERMANY. 43 

versities, an instilled, and, perhaps, a useful 
prejudice against the armies, and officers of 
Germany, incline to despise all that is ut- 
tered by lips hidden under mustachios, or 
that is accompanied in its going forth by a 
cloud of smoke from the genuine meerschaum 
pipe. Be sure, quite sure of your strength 
before you let out on any subject connected 
with the classics, the belles lettres, the arts 
or sciences, at a table filled with Prussian 
officers. 

In the morning I visited the church of 
St. Castor, and found it decorated for a 
festival, and filled with a holiday-clad 
congregation. Between the columns, and 
around them, and on the walls, hung rich, 
thick festoons of oak-leaves smelling fresh 
from the forest ; orange-trees and hand- 
some shrubs had been brought from some 
conservatory, and prettily disposed about 
the church. The altars were dressed in 
fresh-gathered flowers, and all the pictures 
had their frames richly concealed in like 
manner. The service was reverently per- 
formed, and the Te Deum well sung ; but 
when, in parts, the whole congregation 



44 GERMANY. 

joined in the psalmody, and the assembled 
voices rose in one full harmonious note of 
praise, I felt a deep and hallowed hap- 
piness. The devotional singing of the 
Germans is of the very highest order ; they 
observe a slow and measured time, and 
preserve a fine accord. Moreover, they are 
sincere and solemn ; the tones seem to 
come up from the depth of their hearts : the 
eyes are not turned fanatically upwards, 
or wandering coldly about ; they have a 
fixed, serious, abstracted gaze, prayerful 
and true. 

In the course of my rambles about the 
city I met a group of boys returning from 
school. Young as they were, their gait, 
and carriage, was already erect, and martial, 
even to the coarse stamp of their military 
boots ; and, instead of satchels for their 
well-thumbed Caesars, all their books were 
packed in little knapsacks fitted square 
upon their young shoulders. 

I walked out to the tomb of General 
Marceau alone : his early laurels, his early 
death, and the memorable circumstances of 
his honoured funeral, invest it with a mild 



GERMANY. 45 

glory, which shines but rarely on the grave 
of a warrior. His remains lie immediately 
under a fort, where, in all future con- 
tinental wars, there will be red artillery 
flashing upon the tomb that guards them. 

A lame commissionaire, such an one as 
is to be found at the gateway of every hotel 
in every large town upon the Rhine, and 
who is generally one of those " broken 
tools that tyrants cast away," procured for 
me the regular permission to visit Ehren- 
breitstein, and accompanied me. As we 
walked slowly up the hill I gathered his 
brief tale. A native of the city, he had 
seen a regiment of French hussars pass 
through, and had followed their fortunes. 
He had served in Spain and Russia, as all 
these poor fellows have, or say they have. 
But here, from his relation of a particular 
circumstance, I was satisfied that I was 
walking by the side of a man who had 
been drenched by the very same midnight 
rain, and, after a morning of rude greetings 
in the field, had been dried by the same 
welcomed sunbeams as myself some four- 
teen years ago. 



46 GERMANY. 

The works of the fortress have again 
arisen in considerable strength, but much 
remains to be done. According to the rate 
at which they now labour, and the number 
of men they employ, it would take seven or 
eight years to complete them : this the old 
Prussian bombardier who showed them 
observed, adding, with gravity, that there 
was no hurry, as there would be plenty of 
time. I hope, from the bottom of my 
heart, that he may be right ; but to think 
of a grey-headed old soldier, who can re- 
member, within the narrow space of ten 
short years, two such days as those of Jena 
and the triumphal entry into Paris, thus 
speaking, — as if havoc were never to be 
cried again, and the dogs of war chained 
up for ever. From the walls I looked 
out upon the same magnificent scene I 
have already spoken of, as discovered 
from Williamstadt, and traced the exten- 
sive works, which, on every side, protect 
Coblentz, and the calm meeting of the 
Moselle and the Rhine. There is a hand- 
some church in this lofty fort bomb-proof. 
There is always a great stillness about a 



GERMANY. 47 

church; even if it be an erection of yester- 
day, it breathes composure on the visitor ; 
but to be reminded by the word bomb-proof, 
that it is designed for that hurried worship, 
which, amid the alarms and tumults of a 
siege, is the only service that can be joined 
in by a belted soldiery, awoke in me the 
thought that there was nothing more dif- 
ficult for regularly educated clergymen than 
to preach the Gospel to soldiers ; and that, 
in the course of a long period of military 
service, I could scarce summon to my re- 
collection one single discourse, delivered 
by a chaplain, which met the minds, habits, 
feelings, and spiritual wants of private sol- 
diers. I shall be told Christianity is the 
same everywhere, and at all times, and 
among all classes of society. True ; but 
to preach it in the carpeted drawing-room 
is one thing, to preach it in the open camp 
is another ; to keep Sabbath where bells do 
knoll for church is one thing, to keep it in 
your shut heart amid the stir of a line of 
march is another ; at least I think so, and 
I have often wished to see a helping vo- 
lume for the tent and the guard-room : but 



48 GERMANY. 

yet I so reverence the ark, that I almost 
fear to see a soldier's hand on it. 

I took a caleche to myself from Coblentz 
to Maynz, that I might linger on the way. 
Leaving Coblentz after dinner, I passed to 
St. Goar, where I slept : the route is never 
to be forgotten ; much is felt, but little can 
be said upon it. It is a blending of all 
beauties ; cliff and ruin, wood and crag, 
vines and happy-looking dwellings, — dwell- 
ings, old in their fashion, and solid in 
their aspect; thresholds of worn stone that 
have been stepped over by many gener- 
ations ; and vine-clad porches that have 
shaded many a wayworn traveller as he 
partook the free hospitality of kind owners 
smiling in peace and abundance. 

I strongly recommend an evening at the 
post-house of St. Goar to all travellers, for, if 
it is still what I found it, they will meet 
with cleanliness, tranquillity, and civil treat- 
ment : moreover, the site is most beautiful. 

While they were preparing my supper 
I took a walk. Walks at the hour of dusk 
are ever soothing and pleasant, but espe- 
cially so on the bank of a fine river : the 



GERMANY. 49 

How is heard more solemn in the stillness, 
and the glassy light of broad and gliding 
waters is seen with a more thoughtful 
feeling. At the bend of the stream I saw 
some figures approaching in the distance, 
and presently they broke out into singing, — 
it was a hymn. They passed me linked hand 
in hand, and my heart's blessing went after 
them as their forms disappeared, and their 
voices died away. 

The ruin of Rheinfels, above St. Goar, 
is well deserving a visit : it has been in 
succession convent, castle, and fort. In 
this last character it was surrendered or be- 
trayed to the French, on the first summons, 
during the war of the revolution ; by them 
it was blown up. A weedy garden, the 
painted walls of a music-room, and spacious 
cellars, tell of mirth, music, and the wine- 
cup ; while a few horrible dungeon-tombs, 
resembling the famed oubliettes^ remind you 
that there are more passions in the human 
breast than the one of love, and other sighs 
in this our world than those of lovers. 

On your route towards Bingen you pass 
under a rocky height, called the Lurley- 



50 GERMANY. 

berg, where there is an echo. Of this 
echo your postilion is too proud to remain 
silent ; he disturbs the solitude with his 
shout, and smiles back in your face, as he 
is answered by obedient Pan. 

The site of the castle of Schonberg, as 
you pass forward, is very picturesque. The 
town of Oberwesel stands prettily ; there 
is a ruined church, and another beautifully 
clothed with ivy, which demand a passing 
visit. Here, too, is a small chapel, dedi- 
cated to the memory of a youthful martyr 
and canonised saint, named Werner, who 
is said to have suffered a death at the hands 
of the Jews, many centuries ago, under cir- 
cumstances of the most aggravated cruelty 
and horror. The legend is similar to that 
related by the prioress in Chaucer's tales, 
and to that other preserved in the old ballad 
styled Hugh of Lincoln. 

A wine-press and a cottage stand in the 
same enclosure with the chapel, and the 
good people keep the key, and open it for 
strangers. It is dilapidated, but not alto- 
gether in ruins. The windows are broken, 
indeed, and the damp air is busy on the 



GERMANY. 51 

walls ; but devotees still visit and kneel 
before the altar, over which hangs a very 
horrid picture of this martyrdom. It re- 
presents the victim-youth suspended with 
his head downwards, and several Jews in 
the act of lancing his body with knives, and 
taking from it goblets of blood. Although 
the mind rejects at once the interested in- 
vention of the miracles, which, in all these 
cases, are recorded as having followed on 
such sacrifice, by rendering it impossible 
for the perpetrators of the crime to bury 
or conceal the mangled corpse of their 
victim, which is, in every case, stated to 
have spoken out after the extinction of life, 
it is not easy to refuse belief to the simple 
fact of a Christian child having been mur- 
dered by Jews at one of these places, if not 
at all. I cannot, however, credit the mon- 
strous tale, that it was a deliberate practice 
of that persecuted sect to sacrifice annually 
a Christian child in solemn assembly. In 
Asia, to this very day, the boys in the streets 
will spit upon and jeer at the Jew. Now, 
we may readily imagine that the laughing 
taunts of children, and their practical in- 

e 2 



52 GERMANY. 

suits, would exasperate the spirit of hunted 
and irritated men, even to madness ; and 
this may account, I think, for children hav- 
ing been the chance-victims of a people, at 
once vindictive and timid. In the ballad 
of Hugh of Lincoln, the boys are repre- 
sented playing at foot-ball, and the one 
who afterwards suffers, as kicking it through 
a Jew's window. This more strongly in- 
clines me to an opinion, in which I wish to 
be confirmed, rather than be compelled to 
admit that such puttings to death were 
solemn and sacrificial. In either view none 
can deny to the subject a very deep and 
affecting interest. The mother is thus 
wonderfully depicted in Chaucer : — 

cc %$i# poore tmfcoft) aYuattetfi al tfie mgfit 
£fter fier little cfiilfce, anti fie tame nougfit : 
jfor tofitcfi m 0oone m it toas fcap-ligfit, 
OTttfi face pale for trretie anti tmgp tfiougfit, 
S>fie fiatfi at gcfiole anti elgtofiere fitm gougfit, 
%i\\ finallp gfie gan go farre agpte 
-Cfiat fie lagt gene ferns in tfie Jetorie. 

OTttfi motfier pitie in fier breagt enclogeti 
#fie gotfi ag gfie toere fialfe out of fier mtntie 
Uto efcerp place, tofiere gfie fiatfi guppogeti 
Wp K&rttfiooli fier c fitte for to finfcc : 



GERMANY. 53 

and efcer on Cfirigteg mother gooti anD lunde 
3>l)e cried-** — 

Forgive me, reader, I could not choose 
but quote these lines ; forgive me for that 
one, — 

With face pale for drede and busy thought. 

Remember, too, that these tales and these 
verses are in black letter, true German 
text. 

The scenery onward continues rich, ro- 
mantic, and varied ; the famous stone, near 
Bacharach, called the Altar of Bacchus, 
shone smooth, dry, and hot above the 
bosom of the Rhine, giving promise of a 
full and fruitful vintage. Of the vineyards 
on this route, pictorially speaking, I must 
observe, that they are generally more 
honoured and bepraised, by travellers and 
poets, than their appearance warrants. They 
rise on rapid slopes, and, in many install ces, 
on narrow slips of land, which are forced 
to be protected and built up by low-walled 
embankments. In all of them the brown 
surface of the earth bears so large a pro- 

e 3 



54 GERMANY. 

portion to that clad in the verdure of the 
plant, that the general effect, were it not 
for the association of ideas, would be almost 
painful ; it would seem to the mere gaze as 
if vegetation was struggling weakly and in 
vain upon a barren and ungrateful soil. 
The vine trelliced is every where beautiful, 
or when trained in festoons, as in Lom- 
bardy ; or when, on a wide flat vineyard, 
the bushes show thick, and you cannot get 
sufficiently above the ground to view its 
nakedness. — But I feel shame ; it is a 
pitiful return to the grapes of Hockheim, 
and Laubenheim, and Rudesheim, which 
so gladden and strengthen the traveller's 
heart, to criticise the aspect of the gardens 
where they grow ; it is like praising a real 
good fellow, and then coldly regretting that 
he is plain. 

The strange-looking, many-windowed inn 
at Bingen was empty ; so that I sate down 
to my cover alone, but with plenty to amuse 
the eye, for on the papered wall were de- 
picted the French triumphs in Egypt, and 
pyramids, palm-trees, obelisks, tents, Ma- 
malukes and French hussars were blended 



GERMANY. 55 

around in gay and unintelligible confusion, 
With these objects staring me in the face, 
I could not resist the little vanity of saying 
that I had been in Egypt, although I had 
only a waiter to say it to. 

" Est-ce un bon pays, Monsieur ? est-ce 
quil y a du vin ?" The Arab always asks 
the stranger if he has dates in his coun- 
try ? Thus it is men are bound by the 
fitted gifts of Providence to their own al- 
lotted path in creation. 

In this place, opposite the inn, I recol- 
lect seeing a young mother, and her first- 
born child, of rare beauty ; and the playful 
fondling and returned caresses gave me a 
picture perfect in its kind. 

There is a garden on a height here, with 
a ruined castle in the midst of it. The 
whole is prettily laid out in walks, and 
flower-plots, with arbours and rustic seats, 
in spots commanding the finest prospects. 

There is an iEolian harp placed in the 
ruined tower. When the garden was empty, 
and the shades of evening fell thick, and all 
was gloom and stillness, I returned and 
leaned long against the locked door, to 

e4 



56 GERMANY. 

listen to that fitful, melancholy music. 
Such things send you sad, yet happy to 
your couch. 

The route to Mayence crosses the Rhein- 
gau : a blessed abundance smiled all round; 
wide corn-fields, grapes in the blush, and 
fruit-trees, in long avenues, on the very 
road. The wayfaring traveller gathers the 
unmissed apple from the loaded branch, 
and rests beneath its shade, . and eats it ; 
and no one says nay to him. 

The view of Mayence, on the road from 
Nieder Ingelheim, is very fine ; at the gate 
a bronzed old Austrian, in a white uniform, 
demands your passport ; and ten yards 
farther you meet a youthful, fresh-com- 
plexioned Prussian, who demands it again, 
In short, you are now fairly in the hands 
of the high Allied Powers, for they garri- 
son this noble city and important post be- 
tween them. You drive down a fine broad 
street of princely old mansions, unoccupied, 
or converted to some public use, such as an 
office, a store, or a barrack. 

It was the hour of dinner when I reached 
the hotel, and a scene of great bustle and 



GERMANY. O i 

discomfort it appeared ; a long, crowded 
table of busy feeders, and unheeded mu- 
sicians carelessly playing their worst pieces. 
The next day, however, when I w T as neither 
hot nor dusty, I enjoyed the table d'hote 
much. 

Mayence is, to my eye, a very interesting 
place ; a man might stand rooted for a 
whole evening in the middle of its long 
bridge, looking down that unequalled val- 
ley of the Rhine ; and long might he lean 
over the parapet of its promenade, just 
above the confluence of the Maine and the 
Rhine ; and long might he gaze down upon 
the city, and mark that cathedral, so deeply 
richly red, when, at the sunset hour, it 
passes through a glorious course of changing 
tints, till, in the all-grey dusk, it stands 
black and solemn above the mass of habit- 
ations, just veiled by the rising vapours. 
The evening I was on the promenade there 
was music, martial music, but soft breath- 
ing, as if to win the hearts of women, and 
aid young soldiers, as silently they walk 
with beauty, and sigh their first loves. 

Germany has been, in our day, one vast 



58 GERMANY. 

theatre of war, and scarce a city on the 
Rhine, the Danube, or the Elbe, but has 
witnessed 

" Sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts." 

Knowing this, we look upon young German 
lovers as rejoicing that the war-trumpet 
cannot startle them in that sweet dream 
which comes not twice in any life, and is not 
fairly and unbrokenly slumbered through 
by one in a million. I am old, but I can- 
not and wish not to forget that I have been 
young. Germany is a country for bringing 
such recollections home to the hearts of all 
men, especially of soldiers. 

There is a public library here, a museum, 
many Roman antiquities, and some pictures 
of interest ; but there is no fine building to 
receive them, and they are crowded in 
small miserable apartments, little heeded 
by visitors. This gives great pain to the 
professors and citizens, and is certainly not 
to the credit of the Sovereign Duke, of 
whose indifference to the general welfare 
of the city, as well as to these little objects 



GERMANY. 59 

of their pride, they largely complain. In 
weighing, however, the discontent of the 
inhabitants of Mayence, it is necessary to 
remember that they were greatly favoured 
by France, and greatly enriched by the 
constant passage of her troops into Ger- 
many. Here the French soldier generously 
spent his last sous, and, crossing the bridge, 
here he left his conscience to rejoin him 
with his arrears, if he should ever chance 
to return. 

Among the lions of the city, the Gutten- 
burgh tablet ranks high : at the time of my 
visit it was in peculiar honour, in conse- 
quence of a paper war between a professor 
of Moguntia and Haarlem, on the disputed 
title of the former city to the glory of that 
invention, which has so largely contributed 
to the improvement and the happiness of 
man. 

In the citadel, a fine broken tower, of the 
massive Roman build, recalls the name and 
renown of Drusus. The traveller is con- 
ducted to view and ascend it by an Aus- 
trian orderly. It looks down proudly, and 



60 GERMANY. 

rather contemptuously on the unpicturesque 
forms of the modern works, and upon can- 
non, those meaner engines that in the day 
of Rome were not. 

In the cathedral are found many old 
tombs, to which the verger's long tale is 
attached ; but none does he tell more 
briefly, and before none does the visitor 
stand so long, or with so delighted a feeling, 
as that of Frauenlob the Minnesanger. The 
sculpture is small, and quaint : eight gentle 
dames are represented as supporting his 
bier : such were the funeral honours of 
Henry of Meissen. He lived and died a 
canon of the cathedral : the lyre the solace 
of his days, and he sung the praise of 
woman. Five hundred years have rolled 
over the city, and scarce fewer calamities ; 
yet here, surviving the shrines of saints, 
and the tombs of princes and warriors, the 
name and the fame of a humble bard re- 
main cherished and sacred. Strange and 
delightful memorial ! honour to it ; and 
peace to thy manes, Frauenlob. In the 
lays of the Minnesangers I find no spe- 



GERMANY. 61 

cimen of Henry of Meissen, although the 
engraving of his tomb forms the appro- 
priate frontispiece to that interesting vo- 
lume. All, therefore, that I know of him 
is, that he was one among those to whom 
women should feel indebted to this very 
hour ; for, no secondary cause has so hu- 
manised, refined, and blessed our world 
below, as the high place in man's esteem, 
and tender reverence, which the minstrel 
of the middle ages did first assign to them, 
and the knights of chivalry in brave accord 
confirm. As I turned to leave the tomb, 
one sad thought forced itself upon me. I 
have read somewhere that it is the thorn, 
which piercing the breast of the nightingale, 
causes the sweetness of that melody we love. 
—This bard lived and died unwedded. 

On the morrow I left Mayence, delighted 
with my short sojourn, and looking back 
on it all the way to Biberich with admir- 
ation and regret. There is a chateau at this 
place belonging to the Prince of Nassau ; it 
is pleasantly situated in a garden on the 
banks of the Rhine. I left my carriage at 



62 GERMANY. 

the gate, and walked into the grounds. 
Before the house I saw two sentinels, who 
suffered approach and said nothing ; but I 
was quite confounded as I came suddenly 
on a glass-door, and saw persons seated, 
and moving within. I hurried past, and, 
at a side-door in the wing of the building, 
asked if there was any part of the chateau 
to be seen. From two persons I got a " z/a,' 5 
" ya" but no instruction or offer of assist- 
ance. Near the stables I saw two grooms 
in quiet liveries of grey. One of these, a 
smart handsome man, returned with me, 
and spoke to the maitre cFhotel, who was 
standing in a full suit of black close to a 
maid-servant, engaged in washing silver 
plates as they were brought from table. 
This majordomo gave a gracious " ya" 
the maid two, and a nod ; the groom 
pointed out the way up stairs, bowed re- 
spectfully, and went away. I mounted, and 
found myself at liberty to pass along gal- 
leries, with bed-chamber doors half open, 
and seemingly not long deserted by their 
occupants, till, at length, opening a door 



GERMANY. 63 

at the further end of a long corridor, I 
entered a gallery, running round a painted 
dome. Close to me was a gilded Corinthian 
capita], and below, as if exhibited for the 
gazer's entertainment, the Duke and three 
others partaking of a dejeuner a lafourchette, 
and waited on by several attendants, in full 
suits of black, with shoulder-knots of orange 
riband. At a glance I saw all this, and that 
the party were eating off silver, but I in- 
stantly retired ; not that I believe I should 
have done anything contrary to usage by 
sitting the scene out ; but to a plain English- 
man this kind of thing is felt either painful 
or ridiculous ; for a duke of Nassau is not 
exactly a king of France, and I should as 
soon have dreamed of looking into the 
breakfast-parlour of a quiet English noble- 
man, or country gentleman, as into his. 

From hence I drove to Wiesbaden, a 
small place of baths, with just that sort of 
aspect that seems distinctly to say, here 
you either must be happy, or pretend to be. 
Smile and stay in welcome ; but if you be- 
gin to sigh, away with you. The place is 



64 GERMANY. 

all white. The hotels white, and vast ; 
the salles white, and vast. I sate down 
to a long dinner table, about as full as 
a ball supper table at home, and about in 
the same comfort, — soups cold, and wines 
hot. 

There was one lady in the company, 
although it was only the noon repast, in 
full dress ; arms and neck uncovered. It 
had a very strange appearance, all the rest 
were so shawled and bonnetted. She was 
a handsome woman, of vulgar beauty, if I 
may use such an epithet without sacrilege, 
and I could not but suspect that it was a 
designed mistake. 

There is a very fine building at Weis- 
baden, called the Kursal, appropriated to 
public amusements ; it is three hundred 
and fifty feet in length, by one hundred 
and seventy in breadth : — the great saloon 
is truly magnificent. We have no idea at 
home of amusement conducted on the scale 
on which it is here. 

Restauration, balls, billiards, cards, mu- 
sic, all under the same roof, and, in the 



GERMANY. 65 

arcades adjoining, such shops as are always 
to be met with at watering-places, for the 
sale of trinkets, toys, bon-bons, essences, 
music, and engravings. 

The city of Frankfort did not interest me 
at all : there appeared no bustle, no ac- 
tivity in its streets ; and I believe, at no 
time, except at the season of the fair, is 
there much, if any. It rained heavily 
during my short stay, at which I was well 
pleased, for the weather had been intoler- 
ably hot, and the roads dusty. The traveller 
can scarcely be weather-bound in a place 
ministering more abundantly to his com- 
fort than Frankfort. The hotels are excel- 
lent : he will find at the casino English 
newspapers and reviews ; and it is just a 
spot for repose and letter-writing. 

I passed a morning in the Picture Gal- 
lery. It has not much to boast of, but 
there are many specimens of the old Ger- 
man school which always produce the same 
effect on me as the reading of an old ballad ; 
an effect which few, who are acquainted 
with it, can deny to be very delightful. 



66 GERMANY. 

In the garden-house of a merchant I saw 
the admired statue of Ariadne, by Dan- 
necker. To my eye the figure is altogether 
too large, too fleshy. It is exhibited with 
a great parade for producing, artificially, a 
voluptuous effect, — happily, in vain ; for 
the marble is covered with spots and 
streaks, blue and livid as those on a body 
tainted by the loathsome plague. 

Although, however, this subject was to 
my taste a very disappointing one, I love 
the art too well not to offer my tribute of 
admiration to the sculptor. It is pleasing 
to think of a boy of thirteen determining 
his own path in life in the fearless and in- 
teresting manner in which he is said to 
have done so, and carried on irresistibly by 
the power of his genius, gaining the high 
honours of his art. 

The theatres of Germany must be visited 
by every traveller who would know the 
people. That at Frankfort is a poor one, 
the orchestra good. I saw my country- 
women sadly caricatured in a drama, the 
name of which I cannot remember. Spen- 



GERMANY. 67 

cers of a pale blue silk, with waists of a most 
immoderate length, and round straw hats 
with very narrow brims, disfigured two red 
and white women, whose beauty would at 
no . time have been very remarkable, and 
who were selected as the representatives of 
the two lovely daughters of an English 
merchant. This worthy old gentleman is 
prevented from throwing himself into the 
Thames by an English nobleman, who is 
walking London Bridge at the same mo- 
ment, and with the like intent. There are 
scenes of punch-drinking, love-making, and 
marrying: — as I could understand little if 
any thing of the dialogue, I can only say that 
I thought the piece absurd. I was not sorry 
to feel thus at my first introduction into a 
German theatre, as I had occasion, in other 
places, to observe that the attention to cos- 
tume in Germany is in general, especially as 
it regards the early and middle ages, correct, 
and the acting most natural and impres- 
sive. There was a lady (from Prussia I be- 
lieve) in one of the boxes of surpassing 
beauty : there really seemed a light all about 
her. 

f 2 



68 GERMANY. 

The dismantled ramparts of the city are 
laid out in pleasant gardens, and between 
the showers I met in them numbers of fine 
looking children, prettily dressed, in charge 
of staid old German nurses. As to cos- 
tume, in general, the gentlemen of Frank- 
fort are not to be distinguished from those 
seen daily on our Royal Exchange. The 
old part of the town is dirty enough, never- 
theless its narrow streets have a very pe- 
culiar and a very picturesque aspect ; and 
then they have been walked in long, have 
seen new elected emperors ride through 
them, and have listened to many procla- 
mations. Neither the Election Hall nor 
the famous Golden Bull did I see ; nor can 
I shelter myself under the excuse of Bishop 
Burnet, for, so far from any difficulty at- 
tending the visit, I believe that it was 
because a domestique de place pestered me 
about it, that I did not go. 

Near the gate of Friedberg is a monu- 
ment erected to the memory of the brave 
and devoted Hessians, who fell at the as- 
sault of the city in 1792. There is a huge 
arid hollow helmet on this monument which 



GERMANY. 69 

greatly pleased me, as did the whole me- 
morial, although I am aware that in strict 
taste the style and proportions may be con- 
sidered faulty. 

The road to Darmstadt traverses a very 
noble pine-forest. The town, though small, 
has a handsome, court-like look ; the 
square is really fine, as is the grand street 
leading from it. I found a good hotel, and 
got a very cheerful chamber. In this place 
I lingered delightfully for three days. 
There are most pleasant gardens to walk 
in ; there is an excellent opera for those 
who love music, — and who is there does 
not ? there is a gallery of paintings, in 
which are many pieces of acknowledged 
merit ; and yet, with all these appendages 
of a court and a city, Darmstadt is as still, 
as tranquil as a village. 

I was not a little amused at two re- 
hearsals of the opera of Fernan Cortez, 
where the Duke himself, the scroll of leader 
in his hand, governed his orchestra in 
person. I largely forgave him his hobby, 
while I listened to his fine full band, and, 

f 3 



70 GERMANY. 

if he would only be a little more consider- 
ate to Mayence, should regard this harm- 
less folly not very indefensible : he might 
have tastes quite as costly, though they 
would be regarded as more princely. May 
it not be a beguilement, in which he seeks 
to conceal from himself the nothingness of 
his poor sovereignty, and to console himself 
under a sad bodily infirmity ? I was parti- 
cularly struck by one thing ; although he is 
crooked, has an infirm and bending gait, and 
an impatience of manner, which might tempt 
to ridicule, yet does he bear himself withal 
so much the gentleman and the nobleman, 
that no liberties appeared to me to be taken 
with him, and the musicians were all most 
subduedly obedient in their calling. I 
remained at Darmstadt for the final repre- 
sentation : the scenery was fine, the cos- 
tumes of the Spanish characters excellent, 
in the true old Castilian taste. Those of 
the Peruvians were, of necessity, fanciful 
rather than correct. The theatre was very 
brilliant and well lighted. With the sole 
exception of the "prima donna 3 the singing 



GERMANY. 71 

was not at all remarkable ; but the instru- 
mental music was perfect. The chorusses, 
too, of the Peruvian women, produced 
quite a thrill in my bosom, they are so wild, 
so shrill* so piercing, and the breaks so 
sudden and effective. 

At the risk of being considered tedious, 
I cannot pass over the Picture Gallery in 
silence. There are many chambers, . and 
some hundreds of pictures, the greater 
part of them fit only, according to the 
phrase, to cov£r walls : yet I often think, 
even about pictures so spoken of, take one 
away, take it to your own chamber, and 
hang it up there, how a painting, poor in 
the proud eye of the vain artist or wealthy 
collector, becomes dear to the man of 
imagination. There is in this collection a 
picture, the subject of which is the death 
of Mary. There are thirteen figures in 
the group ; the countenances are of a 
calm, sacred beauty ; the costumes nun- 
like, and in sober keeping. The effect of 
the whole is solemn, sweet, and sad ; the 

f 4 



72 GERMANY. 

painter's name is John Schorel ; the canvass 
small, two feet and a half square. 

There is an embalming of Christ, with 
the Marys, St. John, and two angels, — 
a picture of great beauty, by Schwartz. 
There is also a holy family, with Christ on 
the cross, Mary Magdalen, and St. John, 
by — Unknoxvn. 

I pity the man who dares not admire a 
picture because it wants the magic mint 
press of a name. My perfect ignorance of 
the art leaves me in this point happily in- 
dependent. I rejoice to be pleased, and I 
want no sanction for my admiration. 

There is a fine Domenichino in this col- 
lection, the subject, the Prophet Nathan's 
Accusation of David. Nathan is a strongly 
marked prophetic form and face, terrific in 
gesture, and mantled in deep red. The 
king is starting, and has the wide stare of 
terror. I admire the painting, but like not 
this way of telling that awful story. No- 
thing, perhaps, was more calm, nothing 
more stilly, than the utterance of " Thou 
art the man." These simply-whispered 



GERxMANY. 73 

words must have resounded as God's own 
thunder on the sinner's ear, and gone 
down keener than a two-edged sword into 
his heart. There is a St. John in the Wil- 
derness, by Raphael ; a Virgin teaching the 
Infant Jesus to read, with Joseph in the 
back ground, by Ludovico Caracci ; a Peter 
denying Christ to the Maid, by Domeni- 
chino ; an Old Man, by Spagnoletto ; a 
Hagar in the Wilderness, by Pietro de 
Cortona ; and many others, well rewarding 
the time passed in gazing on them. 

The court apartments in the castle, 
which are shown to the visitor, have their 
interesting old furniture, and their gaudy 
new. The Chamber of the Throne is re- 
markably rich in its decorations. I could 
not help calling to mind the speech of 
Napoleon in 1814, when, on the invasion 
of the allies, he so angrily dismissed the 
Chamber of Deputies, and in the course 
of which he broke out with his rude but 
impressive camp-eloquence : " What is it, 
then, a throne f only four planks of wood 
nailed together, and covered with red vel- 



74 GERMANY. 

vet ! It is not the throne ; it is the man 
who sits on it — Moije suis le trone" 

There are many things in this palace 
presented to the Grand Duke by Napo- 
leon ; among others, a very elegant clock 
from Paris. The device is classical, and in 
the happiest taste. The figures of each 
advancing hour issue forth from an urn of 
alabaster, and the motto is, 

" OMNIUM VERSATUR URNA." 

In one small chamber is the portrait of a 
little child ; it is that of the present King 
of Prussia, and was taken when he was in 
infancy. The person who conducted me 
through the apartments told me, that when 
this sovereign was last at Darmstadt he 
breakfasted alone in that very cabinet, op- 
posite to his own picture. An anecdote 
like this I love ; it shows a king confessing 
his alliance with our common kind, wishing 
himself again, perhaps, the little uncrowned 
thing that played free in a nursery, instead 
of the sceptred monarch, labouring, and 



GERMANY. 75 

that subjectedly, in a closet. Childhood 
is the season of true royalty ; they com- 
mand us all ; they bid us do this and do 
that, come here and go there, show the 
picture or tell the story, or sing the song, 
and we do it all with delighted obedience. 
It is innocence we serve ; nay, we feel them, 
in so much, beings of a higher order ; we 
forget not that of such is the kingdom of 
Heaven, and that the angel of every one 
among them does continually behold the 
face of the Most High. 

There is a beautiful garden in Darm- 
stadt, called the Herrengarten, with wood, 
and shrubbery, and winding walks ; a seat 
on a mound, commanding the extensive 
plain beyond, and a small lake with an islet 
in the midst, all fringed about with the 
drooping willow. There is another garden 
on the other side of the city, in an older 
fashion, with fine shaded avenues, terraces, 
fountains, and a large old conservatory full 
of orange trees, — just the place for a sum- 
mer fete. In a ramble to the south of the 
city, I found on the plain a small camp 



76 GERMANY. 

of horse-artillery, with a large butt for 
practice ; and the pine-wood near was echo- 
ing to the rollings of the drum, where a 
set of chubby younkers were learning their 
first beats under a drum-major. 

In the streets of the city I saw the state- 
carriages of the Duke going to meet some 
honoured guest; they were preceded by run- 
ning footmen. This is old and courtlike ; it 
provokes a smile, however. The less of sub- 
stance in sovereignty, the more I observe 
the shadow is always clung to. The waiter 
at the hotel where I lodged professed to be 
learning English, and begged me very hard 
to give him some English book. Of the 
few pocket volumes 1 carried with me, I 
could not bring myself to part with one. 
I gave him, however, an old pocket-book^ 
which I chanced never to have written in, 
so that I furnished him with most import- 
ant knowledge for a waiter; and he may 
now learn how to measure out his respect 
to English travellers according to a printed 
list of our Lords, Commons, Baronets, and 
orders of Knighthood. 



GERMANY. 77 

The first part of the road from Darm- 
stadt to Heidelberg lies in a wood of pines. 
The sun lighted the rough rind of their 
tall stems with a golden hue, and the sha- 
dow of their black branches gave a fine 
relief to the picture. I stopped at the vil- 
lage of Alsbach, and, directing the carriage 
to meet me at Auerbach, ascended Mount 
Melibcecus with a German peasant-boy for 
my guide. 

The walk is delightful in itself, and from 
association magical. It is the Odenwald 
which you traverse : there are not many 
large trees, but there is all that tall, tangled, 
and matted brushwood which belongs to 
the forest hill ; there is a talking stream ; 
the path is circuitous, now ascends, now 
dips, then rises again, and winds far about 
to the tower-crowned summit. Save the 
water, and your own voices, you scarce hear 
a sound, without it be in parts the axe of 
the wood-cutter, who may be chance-seen, 
far in the glen, at his solitary labour. 

I practised the few words of German I 
was master of with my young guide with 
greater success than hitherto : at that age 



78 GERMANY. 

they strive to understand you ; the older 
German never does ; you either speak his 
language or you do not. He is proud of 
his mother-tongue, and cares for you in ex- 
act proportion as you may be master of it. 
I speak of the people. French carries the 
traveller, with the greatest ease, all over 
Germany ; and for the slight intercourse 
you have with coachmen, barmaids, and 
guides, a few words of German intelligibly 
pronounced, and intelligently applied, will 
answer all the purpose of warding off em- 
barrassment. This I state, because I am 
sure that many travellers, of a certain age, 
are deterred from visiting that most inter- 
esting country from an ignorance of the 
language, and a despair of acquiring it. No 
man, indeed, can read two dozen pages in 
a German grammar without seeing that it 
is a language most difficult of attainment, 
its construction very perplexing in con- 
versation, its pronunciation rarely to be 
acquired by a foreigner, after that season 
when the organs are yet flexible in youth, 
and of an evident copiousness and richness 
which few may hope to command but those 

20 



GERMANY. 79 

who have early lisped in it. This I say 
not to excuse indolence, or discourage 
industry, but to check presumption. Be- 
fore many talkers of German, French as 
well as English, the puzzled persons they 
address smoke, and remain dumb. Bound- 
ing my own efforts most narrowly to my 
daily wants, on a rapid excursion, I each 
morning renewed my resolve to study and 
master the rewarding language at some 
favourable period as to leisure and abode. 

From the tower of Melibcecus you look 
out far over the vale of the Bhine, the red 
cities on its banks, and the blue mountains 
of the Vosges beyond ; immediately be- 
low and around you lie the wooded and 
wavy hills of the Odenwald, with here and 
there a ruined castle on their summits. 
The whole presents to the eye a very glo- 
rious natural panorama. I descended by a 
rude path to Auersberg : here I found 
among the ruins a German gentleman and 
his two sons, boys of six or seven years of 
age. After examining the remains of the 
castle he joined me on my walk down to 
the village, where my carnage was waiting. 



80 GERMANS. 

He was very agreeable, and amused me 
much by a long and thorough German dis- 
sertation upon the difference of character 
in his two boys, and its development in 
the most minute circumstances. This he 
was exemplifying to me, as they played be- 
fore us, by the different way in which they 
ran up and down the banks near us, and 
the different objects that made them stop, 
or attracted their young regards. He dis- 
appointed me by speaking very lightly of 
Madame de Stael's Germany, a book I 
thought most highly of before I saw that 
country, and think more highly of since 
personal observation has confirmed to me 
the value of it. I believe, however, that 
the plain English of the old gentleman's 
objection was that true love of father-land, 
which resented the idea of any but a Ger- 
man born, bred, and resident, treating any 
subject connected with the history, the 
institutions, or literature of his country 
worthily enough. 

The road from hence to Heidelberg, 
along what is called the Bergs trasse, is a 
wonder and a delight : the eye rests on 



GERMANY. 81 

nothing but beauty, fertility, and abund- 
ance ; the outstretched hand can touch no 
branch that is not fruitful ; it has all the 
appearance of a vast garden ; the very towns 
and villages lose their man-made character; 
they, too, look as if they were but just 
enough to preserve it from running to 
waste, and as if the happy inhabitants had 
been placed in them with the same blessed 
command as our first parents in their Eden, 
" to dress and to keep it." But I check a 
rhapsody so naturally inspired by the scene, 
and must confess to my reader, that this 
paradise is traversed by a military road, and 
that we need not look farther back than the 
history of our own times to know, that 
from these same trees the blushing fruit 
has been rudely snatched by hands yet red 
from the battle. This road terminates in 
the valley of the Neckar ; the hills, between 
which the river flows, are picturesque in 
their character. On the left bank lies the city 
of Heidelberg ; upon a wooded cliff above 
it stands the castle. This ruin greatly dis- 
appointed me; it is a huge pile of build- 
ing, dilapidated, roofless s windowless. Row 



82 GERMANY. 

above row of square gaping vacuities stare 
out upon you from walls, which want alike 
the form and the colour that give dignity 
to a castle, or interest to a ruin. It is 
like the shell of a barrack, a hospital, or 
a manufactory ; such, at least, it appears 
in the glare of noonday. In the grey 
hour of dawn, however, or the deep gloom 
which follows upon sunset, the effect is 
certainly imposing, and may be called ma- 
jestic. I visited it at both those hours, 
and I sate out on its terrace, looking 
down the river on the glorious plain, 
bounded by the Rhine, with an entranced 
rapture. 

There are some pinnacle points on the 
loftiest part of the ruin, surmounted by 
statues, the attitudes of which are gro- 
tesque. In the evening hour they look 
like living beings, and produce a very fan- 
tastic illusion. I did not forget to visit the 
famed tun ; it is like an old Dutch ship on 
the stocks, a large ribbed vessel, that might 
contain a sea of wine, and float it safely 
over an ocean of water. 

I met several students in the gardens, 



GERMANY. 83 

both in groupes and singly. Heidelberg 
is a university containing many hundreds. 
Of German students I can only speak pic- 
torially, as I have seen them in my brief 
passage through the country, and as I have 
been impressed by them. Their costume, 
when clean, I am far from disliking, and 
their sins of smoking and singing appear 
to me venial offences ; even the drinking 
of beer where they cannot get wine I for- 
give. I believe Porson, our renowned 
Grecian, would have smoked and drunk 
beer with any two of them ; and, perhaps, 
his shirt-collar might not have shamed 
the whiteness of theirs. Tom Warton (that 
well-beloved name) liked his ale and his 
rubber of bowls, and so did the men of his 
time. Ale-houses had a long day both at 
Oxford and Cambridge, but Germany is 
far behind us ; with her they are the rage 
still, that is, where the country affords not 
wine. Of the students in German univer- 
sities the great majority are poor. The 
period of their residence is a very trying 
one, and nothing but the care generally 
bestowed on their boyhood at home would 

2 



84 GERMANY. 

safely carry a youth through it, and restore 
him, as* a late traveller tells us it does, " to 
fall into his own place in the bustling com- 
petition of society, and lead a peaceful, in- 
dustrious life, as his father did before him." 
In their universities there is none of that 
wholesome discipline so honourably distin- 
guishing those of our native country. It was 
the immediate and shrewd observation of 
the Duchess of Oldenburgh, on visiting 
Oxford : — w Here is one great secret of 
your superiority in discipline, your scholars 
live enclosed in colleges, and separate from 
the citizens." But yet, with all these ad- 
vantages, let a German traveller arrive at 
an inn in Oxford, where some of the wilder 
young gownsmen are holding such a dinner 
and supper as we know they sometimes 
do 5 and let him go next morning to the 
theatre, and hear an unpopular vice-chan- 
cellor and his proctors hooted, nay, liter- 
ally, by some, howled at with a tone only 
suited to a cock-fight ; would it not be par- 
donable if he were, for a moment, a little 

* A Tour in Germany, by John Russel, Esquire, 
vol. i. page 193. 



GERMANY. 85 

staggered about the excellence of our dis- 
cipline, and the gentleness of our manners ? 
Yet a little enquiry would soon convince 
him of the true worth and sterling qua- 
lities of our students, and enable him to 
smile away and forget such trifles, as cir- 
cumstances by which he might have been 
led to form a very unfaithful estimate of 
the true character of that great and admired 
seat of learning. 

I mean not to institute an unfair and 
impossible comparison between the com- 
paratively wealthy gownsmen at our uni- 
versities and the poor burschen of Germany, 
but I want more allowance for the latter 
than is generally made. 

No man can pass an hour in a room with 
German students without discovering that 
they are worshippers of knowledge, and 
lovers of their father-land. This love of 
father-land does indeed give them heated 
and vague notions, the warmth of which 
does never, I hope, entirely die away, 
while the vagueness settles down into some- 
thing defined and valuable in permanent 
guiding principles of life. 

" G S 



86 GERMANY. 

As to the foppery of their eccentric cos- 
tume, be it remembered, that, a few short 
years ago, every trifle which distinguished 
the German from his French enemy, or 
from those of his own countrymen, cor- 
rupted by intercourse with their conquerors* 
was of great importance. It is with such 
an eye that I have looked upon their shape- 
less coat, their long hair, their bare neck, 
and the open shirt-collar falling back upon 
their shoulders. I have certainly seen 
among them the would-be rakish, or rather 
the rakish and the rude ; but many a cheek 
have I observed pale with study, and many 
an eye bright with the intelligence of that 
happy age, when it is a pastime to attempt 
the hill of Fame. When gathered together 
at their universities they are all young, and 
they dream that Germany might be a free 
land. When they become men they awake, 
and see distinctly the cheerless reality. 
Then, contenting themselves with personal 
independence as men, political liberty, as 
members of a nation, they forget or forego. 
Germany must go through a dreadful or- 
deal before she can ever be (what they de- 



GERMANY. 87 

sire to see her) a country ; she must be 
made one by some ambitious and wide-con- 
quering usurper, and he, or his successor, 
chained up by charters, or made nothing 
by a firm and resolved people. 

I attended divine service at the Lutheran 
church, and heard a sermon, of which I 
understood nothing. The preacher was 
serious and earnest in his manner, and the 
congregation, especially the young students, 
of whom numbers were present, devoutly 
attentive. 

On my way to Manheim I visited the 
gardens of Schwetzingen. They are very 
spacious, and, from the small number of 
persons met in them 5 you can command 
solitude. They cover nearly two hundred 
acres : they have avenues, bowers, foun- 
tains ; in these Jast an Arion, infant tritons, 
dolphins, and aquatic birds, spout up the 
waters. There are many statues, — a few 
good and appropriately placed :— Apollo 
shining in an open temple ; Pan seated on 
his rock. There are several temples, a 
mosque, and some Roman ruins imitated 
with great skill. But nothing is more dis- 

g 4 



88 GERMANY. 

displeasing, or disappointing to the taste, 
than a mock ruin ; caught by the aspect 
of a brown and broken tower, to walk to- 
wards it with a quicker step, and to find 
that it is all a scenic trick, that you have 
been cheated of an emotion, makes you 
angry with the artist and with yourself. 

You drive forth from Schwetzingen by a 
most superb avenue of poplars. They are 
not here thin in their foliage and waving, 
but they are full of leaves : — the sky cannot 
be seen through them ; and they rise to a 
most stately height, resembling, to the 
fancy, a long line of green obelisks ; only 
the shadows these cast have freshness ra- 
ther than solemnity, and the wind, as it 
rustles amid their branches, tells you that 
they are living things rejoicing in exist- 
ence. Poplars are found all about German 
cities, especially on the Rhine ; they form 
quite a feature in all their town views, 
and to my taste a very graceful one. You 
approach Manheim through a line of num- 
berless small garden-houses, but they are 
close to each other, situate in small plots 
of ground, and dusty. Manheim, you are 



GERMANY. 89 

told by guide-books, travellers, residents, 
and domestiques de place, is one of the most 
regularly beautiful towns on the Continent. 
I admit the regularity, but deny the beauty. 
There is a sameness, tame and tiresome to 
the eye, — it is insipid, and uninteresting. 
I walked out to breathe freer in the suburbs, 
and crossed the bridge over the Rhine. 
From thence the view of the city is very 
fine. The square towers, if I may so term 
them, in the wings of the castle, rise above 
the thick foliage of the trees in the garden, 
red, massive, and ducal. I returned and 
walked on the garden-bank, — the traveller 
will linger long and late on it. There is 
always a calm glory in this broad and beau- 
teous river, as it glides stilly at the evening 
hour, which fills the inmost soul with 
peace. The living water speaks in silence 
to your spirit ; you feel all its immortality, 
and it tastes repose. 

The church of the Jesuits at Manheim is 
a very handsome building. I found some- 
thing in it quite out of character with the 
general appearance of the city, where the 
streets are all straight, clean, and new- 



90 GERMANY. 

looking, the houses good and tall, and the 
citizens well clad. It was a pilgrim, a true 
pilgrim, one who might have served a 
painter for a model quite as well four hun- 
dred years ago as now. He had not at all 
the look of your holy beggar, your alms- 
seeking penitent. His dress was a coarse 
robe of capuchin brown, without collar or 
hood, bound round him by a thong of lea- 
ther ; he had a staff and beads, and his 
shoes had the gathered dust of long travel, 
His countenance was not of the common 
order ; his cheeks were worn, and wan ; he 
was not old, but his beard was grey ; he 
had a small missal stained by his feverish 
hand; and the view of him, as he kneeled 
in the deep and sincere agony of his prayer, 
filled me with pity. These true penitential 
figures always do good, and, in the old time, 
must have produced a very strong, and 
oftentimes a salutary effect, wherever they 
passed. Their very look is enough : how 
forcibly it speaks of sin and sorrow ; of the 
grave and judgment to come ! The assas- 
sin might at such a sight cast away his 
dagger ; the reveller forsake his wine-cup, 



GERMANY. 91 

and the blood of the cruel libertine run 
back coldly to a sickening heart. 

On the drive to Karlsruhe the road passes 
through several villages ; the houses (for 
there are no cottages) are very tall, crossed 
in many directions by black beams of wood, 
and have shingle roofs. Their loftiness 
gives an idea of space and comfort corre- 
sponding well with the appearance of the 
peasants, who are all fine, stout, erect 
men. The carriage of the people, indeed, 
both here and throughout Germany, is 
quite martial ; they all seem as though they 
were trained to the field. You approach 
Karlsruhe along the edge of the Hartz 
forest, and it is a pleasant resting-place; 
the streets have a clean, cheerful aspect. 
It was early in the evening when I reached 
the hotel, and, after dressing, I took a stroll 
on a promenade outside of the town, in the 
direction of Beyertheim. This is a place 
of baths and amusement, resorted to much 
in fine weather by all the inhabitants. The 
path which I followed wound between a 
well-kept road and a most beautiful green 
plain. It was planted with trees and 



92 GERMANY. 

shrubs, bordered with turf, had rural seats, 
and all around wore the appearance of 
pleasure-grounds ; all the persons, too, 
whom I met, were walking enjoyingly, and 
slow. Attracted by the sound of music, I 
made my way to a kind of promenade haus, 
standing in a garden at Beyertheim. On 
the steps before a large saloon I observed 
a group of officers, and a few civilians. 
Judging it to be a place of public amuse- 
ment, 1 mounted the steps, and asked a 
gentleman, in plain clothes, if it was a build- 
ing open to the public. He bowed a " Yes," 
and pointed to me to enter. I did so, and 
was not a little startled and confused to 
find myself in a ball-room, hung with fes- 
toons of leaves and flowers, and the benches 
and chairs all round filled with the young 
ladies of Karlsruhe, and their chaperones. 
I saw with a glance that it was not exactly 
public, came out again, apologised to the 
gentlemen near for my intrusion, and was 
going away, but they most promptly and 
frankly entreated me to remain and witness 
the ball. They said my mistake was most 
natural; that, in fact, public balls were 



GERMANY. 9- 



often given there, but that this was a sub- 
scription-assembly, supported by the mili- 
tary of the garrison, a few of the chief 
inhabitants, and the civilians in public em- 
ploy, and that the ladies were all of their 
families. A ball is always a pleasant sight, 
if conducted with propriety and decorum : 
it is one which always gives a reflected 
pleasure to a middle-aged man, not the less 
sweet because somewhat sobered by the 
knowledge of the incredible swiftness with 
which the spring-time of life hurries by. 
It seems but yesterday, to most men of my 
age and profession, that we could journey 
twenty miles to an assembly, dance the 
short night away, and back to the early 
muster of the troops ; but twenty years 
have flown by with us all since that yester- 
day ; yet I hope that we are none of us so 
churlish grown as to dislike an occasional 
ball, if it were only to see " lamps shining 
o'er fair women and brave men," and hearts 
beating happily. But this ball had the 
charm of novelty, — a German assembly, 
a circle of waltzers. I bear testimony, from 
attentive observation on this evening, to 



94 GERMANY. 

the extreme propriety and decorum with 
which the Germans dance this their na- 
tional figure. I take the dance to be one 
of very great antiquity, as great, perhaps, 
as the very commencement of men and 
women joining in the dance together. The 
sacred dance of the East was entirely con- 
fined to the service of the temple, and 
mingled with their idolatrous rites, and is 
undoubtedly of the highest origin ; but 
this I take to be the genuine offspring of 
the ancient German camps and settlements, 
where, before their huts, youth and damsel 
clasped each other, and moved in rude 
circlings to sound and song. The waltz, 
however, transplanted, becomes another 
thing, and is no longer the German dance. 
In Spain, for example, the dark beauties of 
the south transfuse into it all the warmth of 
their climate, and all the indolent voluptu- 
ousness of their natures. In England, again, 
I have noticed, from causes which it would 
not be difficult to trace, the waltz assumes 
a character either of great awkwardness and 
painful constraint, or of a bold, unblushing 
indecency, braving all censure. Here it 



GERMANY. 95 

was not so : in points like these we are all 
the creatures of custom, and probably, to 
the eye of the unaccustomed German, many 
parts of our old country dances would 
appear to have improprieties greater than 
his own. To him the waltz is customary 
and innocent ; to us, at home in Old Eng- 
land, it neither is nor ought to be regarded 
as innocent, and will, I trust, never gain 
established favour. I have only spoken thus 
because the Germans are taunted with their 
passion for this dance, as if it stained and 
demoralised their whole country. 

I observed that such a thing as a lounger, 
or an insipid, who will not join in the dance, 
is not tolerated among them; for, in the 
cotillion part, a couple break out from the 
large circle, and setting to any bystander, 
he is led off to a waltz movement, before 
he has time to ungird his sword. Again, 
they have a custom, in parts, of taking each 
from the assembled circle the lady or gen- 
tleman of their choice, for one tour of 
waltzing, quitting, for the time, their actual 
partner ; — a most pleasant privilege. I 
was exceedingly interested : the girls ap- 



96 GERMANY. 

peered to me to have great simplicity and 
frankness of manner ; and there seemed 
an absence of all encumbering vanities in 
their dress. 

The music of the waltz has turns and 
cadences of a character most soft, most 
sweet ; and where two hearts beat with a 
strong youthful attachment towards each 
other may certainly minister delightfully, 
and not without danger, to the silent lan- 
guage of the eye. I thought of all this as 
I looked on the cheerfully innocent smiles 
all round me, and remembered that a few 
years ago the gallant youth of Germany 
could only snatch these pleasures as they 
were hurried about, under one banner or 
another, to scenes of combat and death. I 
have dwelt too long on this, but the young 
and their pleasures are dear to me ; more- 
over, such a picture belongs essentially to 
the aspect of German society. 

" The wise man sees his winter close 
Like evening on a summer day ; 
Each age, he knows, its roses bears, 
Its mournful moments, and its gay. 



GERMANY. 97 

CT Thus would I dwell with pleasing thought, 
Upon my spring of youthful pride ; 
Yet, like the festive dancer, glad 
To rest in peace at even-tide." 

One other stanza of this song I must give 
for the sake of any once admired belle, now 
in the conscious wane, reminding her that 
it is the production of a songstress and 
beauty of the olden time, 

" The gazing crowds proclaimed me fair, 

Ere, Autumn-touch'd, my green leaves fell ; 
And now they smile, and call me good ; 
Perhaps I like that name as well." 

Lays of the Minnesingers, p. 273. 

The traveller will find Karlsruhe a most 
pleasant spot to refresh in. Although the 
country around is flat, the view from the 
tower of the castle is beautiful ; the dark 
mass of the forest seen on one side, and 
the white town on the other, contrast 
Very happily ; and when you think that the 
place owes its origin to the vow of a tired 
hunter resting under a shady tree, where 
now, in the midst of a cheerful and not in- 
elegant square, his bones repose, your heart 

H 



98 GERMANY. 

is agreeably moved by the many strange 
associations which mingle themselves with 
your train of thought. For the solitary 
blast of some enquiring hunting-horn, you 
have now full military bands filling wide 
the air with their brazen and haughty 
tones ; for the whispered prayer of the be- 
nighted wanderer, the hymning of thou- 
sands securely assembled in their handsome 
churches. 

In Rastadt I passed only a few hours for 
the purpose of visiting the chateau. Here, 
in dusty closets and glass-cases, are ex- 
hibited numberless trophies taken from the 
Turks by the warlike Margrave Louis Wil- 
liam. Here are tarnished cloths of gold, 
rusting arms, and housings heavy with em- 
broidery, that the infidel came to battle in, 
and a horse-tail standard ! The traveller, 
who chances to recollect the twenty-second 
stanza of the Siege of Corinth, may quote 
it here, if he can get the room to himself, 
and that wonderful picture of a Turkish 
host will give shape and life to these relics. 
I remembered most of it ; but, oh ! for that 
boy memory again, to which page after 



GERMANY. 99 

page of any thing that delighted was fa- 
miliar enough to come clear at the bidding 
at any hour, in any place ! — it is gone, and 
will never return. Fragments, however, of 
poetry are to the solitary traveller as music 
and companionship. The man who travels 
much, and alone, feels a fond personal obli- 
gation to poets. The fancy is never in so 
happy a frame for receiving imagery as in 
journeying; the heart never so ready to 
listen to the melancholy moral, which, in 
their moments of high and pure inspiration, 
all truly gifted bards convey. 

The apartments in this castle are all laid 
out in the old taste, In one there is a por- 
trait of this celebrated slayer of the Turks, 
with a court wig large enough for two 
judges ; and there are the pictures of three 
Turkish ladies whom he captured. There 
is a closet most grotesquely walled with 
china. There is a room filled with hunting- 
trophies, such as enormous antlers, and 
pictures of dogs and keepers ; whence, 
passing up, and out on the roof, you find a 
colossal statue of Jupiter, gilt, sitting like 
the god and guardian of the whole. 

h 2 



100 GERMANY. 

There is one old chamber in this palace, 
which you enter through an ante-room hung 
with faded tapestry, and where you find an 
old state bed of crimson damask. The 
view from the windows of it is upon a lawn 
bordered by trees, and terminating in an 
avenue. It has a peculiarly calm, still look ; 
you involuntarily gaze out upon the tran- 
quil scene, thinking with what a sweet 
contentment one should awake and pass 
the morning hour in it. I know it sounds 
silly to attach any importance on paper to 
such a trifle ; yet I do not think that any 
one on the spot would learn that Bonaparte 
once slept in this chamber, on one of his 
military expeditions against the Austrian, 
without being startled, and made to muse 
a little. 

It is no uncommon thing for travellers 
on the Continent to see apartments that 
have been occupied by Napoleon. He has 
been everywhere ; in all the palaces in Eu- 
rope (save ours) ; but the Spirit of turbu- 
lence, the wielder of so much of our earthly 
thunder, the king, the conqueror, when 
you find that he has slept and waked in 

19 



GERMANY. 101 

such a scene, you ask, for a moment, whe- 
ther he did never, or here, or in like quiet 
places, feel the nothingness of his pursuit, 
and the meanness of ambition* 

It was the fair in Rastadt, and the streets 
were crowded with peasantry. The men 
wore, for the most part, either long blue 
coats, or short round jackets of that colour, 
with leather breeches, cocked hat, and 
buckles in their shoes. The costumes of the 
women were rather more varied: — some all 
in black, and unadorned ; others with little 
coloured or embroidered coifs ; others with 
fur-caps, having a red crown and tassels of 
tinsel. The goods exposed for sale were 
mostly for common use, and of little va- 
riety, and the fair seemed only frequented 
and supported by the peasant population. 
There were many stalls with articles for 
dress, such as shawls for the women, of a 
deep red dye, laces, and ready-made caps, 
men's hats, shoes, and clothes, and one very 
large stall of second-hand coats, &c. ; where 
I was sorry to observe great custom, for no- 
thing but a pinching poverty induces even 
the humblest peasant to buy cast-off cloth- 

h 3 



102 GERMANY. 

ing. There were all sorts of farming and 
kitchen utensils, and numerous stalls for 
provisions ; also a few with coloured prints, 
for cottage picture galleries, with strings of 
little beads for fairings, and pipe-heads for 
the life-lasting gift; and watching here I 
could see the longing gaze, the slow pur- 
chase, and the kind wish of the large heart 
in no equivocal expression of countenance. 
It so happens that in the very middle of the 
one wide street where the fair is held, stands 
the church ; all the better stalls, and larger 
throngs of people being gathered imme- 
diately about it. Sounds of greeting, and 
joy, and conviviality, of the pledged glass, 
and the loud bargaining, echo all around. 
The great door of the church was closed. 
On the steps of a small side-door sate an 
aged beggar-woman to gather the alms of 
such rustics as might go in to visit the 
shrines of their patron saints. I went in : — 
one man I found in prayer before the high 
altar ; he soon rose and passed out, and I 
remained for many minutes alone with the 
only human form in that deserted temple. 
It was the pale corpse of a person, not 



GERMANY. 103 

older than myself, that lay awaiting the 
burial. 

In driving out of Rastadt I met several 
long waggons, filled with happy peasants, 
going to the fair. The slow-paced animals 
of labour were urged into a brisker trot to 
keep time with the brisker spirits of their 
fellow servants. These, permittedly for- 
getting yesterday and to-morrow, were jolted 
along, singing and laughing, now silenced 
for a moment by a rut or stone, and the 
next louder and more joyous from the con- 
fusion caused on the narrow benches. 

I went to see the small chateau called 
Favorite, built about a century ago by the 
Margravine Sibyl Augusta ; it is a pretty 
place, and rewards a visit. There is a cool 
hall in the middle of the building, lighted 
from above, and adorned with four foun- 
tains. The apartments are none of them 
large, but they are fitted up in various and 
not unpleasing tastes ; some tiled with 
china, some painted, some tapestried, some 
embroidered by the hand of the Margravine 
herself and the ladies of her small court. 
There is one little chamber, the walls of 

h 4 



104 GERMANY. 

which are entirely covered with looking- 
glass, japan gilt panelling, and a vast num- 
ber of miniatures. Many of these are full 
length forms, representing the Margravine 
and her husband in masquerade dresses ; 
some rich and gorgeous, as Turkish and Spa- 
nish ; others prettily or joyously imagined, 
as those of hay-makers, reapers, shepherds, 
vine-dressers. But the kitchen is the true 
cabinet of curiosities, all things in it are in 
a character so fanciful and freakish. The 
cook's idol or dumb assistant is represented 
by a wooden figure, a bloated, fat, squab of 
a gourmand: his huge paunch conceals 
numerous small drawers for holding spices 
and other rich ingredients of gout-giving 
condiments. Near it hangs a painted board, 
where, in compartments, the various ma- 
terials for all high seasoned and savoury 
dishes are duly displayed to assist the be- 
wildered memory of that busiest and most 
important of personages, a head cook. In 
the closets and cupboards here you find 
glass and china of every sort and quality 
then known, and of various whimsical 
shapes. For instance, glass animals or 



GERMANY. 105 

monsters perform the part of cruets, and 
among the glasses for wine are numbers as 
quaint in form, and as capacious, as the 
Bear of Bradwardine. 

There is also a complete table-service of 
china-ware, the cover of each dish repre- 
senting that which is served up within, as 
turkey, peacock, wild-fowl, boar's head, arti- 
chokes, asparagus, cabbages. Two of these 
last, the large white-headed sort, and the 
rough green savoy, are done so inimitably, 
that they might, at a little distance, deceive 
the eye. It is impossible not to image to 
one's self the kind and playful merriment 
of the feast where these dishes made their 
first appearance. 

From the house I was conducted down 
a long vine-walk, trellised over head, 
to a rustic hermitage built of unbarked 
wood and cork, and thatched. It has a 
rude chapel and two or three chambers 
adjoining, in one of which is a table 
with three waxen figures * : among them (I 

* The figures are seated at this table. There is a 
vacant place, which the Margravine was wont to occupy, 
and the whole thing was designed to represent the Last 
Supper. 



106 GERMANY. 

write the fact with pain) that of our Sa- 
viour. In another is a like figure of Mary 
Magdalen. They show you a knotted 
scourge, a coarse mat for sleeping on, a 
penitential dress of chain-work with small 
pointed spikes to fret the breast, the back, 
the knees, while performing the offices of 
penance. I regarded the whole thing as a 
park-toy, and not a very reverent one ; but 
it is not a toy : here, during the season 
of Lent, the Margravine was wont to retire 
and pass it in acts of penance that partook 
of profanation, so ludicrous, that they 
might excite a smile if we did not see deep 
enough into human nature and human 
wants to be moved rather with pity 
than indignation. Doubtless the heart of 
this crazed being bled more severely be- 
neath her gayest masquerade-dress than her 
breast under these iron tortures ; and, amid 
sounds of unsatisfying merriment, her mind 
was more deeply goaded than when on her 
bleeding knees she passed the sad vigil 
here. How painful to think of is this spirit 
of fear, at once so humiliating, so agonising, 
and so vain, and differing so widely from 
that which we are promised and com- 



GERMANY. 107 

manded to seek, namely, " the spirit of 
power, of love, and of a sound mind I" 

You pass into the well-known watering- 
place of Baden-Baden, by a road which 
turns off from the more public one leading 
to Strasburgh, and runs, for a couple of 
miles or more, into a deep and hidden vale. 
The aspect of the place (the tow r n itself I 
mean) is not remarkable, and the stream, 
on which it is built, is narrow and incon- 
siderable ; but then it is a stream that flows 
from hills, and hills of no common beauty, 
which rear their woody summits on every 
side, and fill the traveller's heart with glad- 
ness. No situation can be more charming : 
this retired place of baths lies deep-nestling 
in as sweet a bosom as nature ever formed. 

It was with some difficulty I got accom- 
modated, and that in a bad hotel, the best 
being full ; but the view from my window 
at once soothed and contented me. 

After refreshing I walked up to the 
castle. You are shown what all castles 
contain, — dungeons; but here I met with 
a new feature in them : there is a dungeon- 
door of stone, of great weight and thick- 
ness ; it moved upon its grooves so heavily. 



108 GERMANY. 

and with a sound so sullen, so very mourn- 
ful, that I stood by it awhile alone, turning 
it to and fro, that I might fix in my mind's 
ear for ever the melancholy tone. There 
is a vaulted chamber near these dungeons, 
where the secret tribunal, once so dreaded 
throughout all Germany, is said to have 
held its awful sittings. The upper rooms 
are sufficiently cheerful, and the large hall 
is surrounded by portraits' of warriors in 
armour ; among them is one in hermit 
robe, and bearded. 

It was growing late, but I walked on into 
the country, in the direction of the old 
castle. The views, on all sides, were beau- 
tiful ; the path soon wound up into a thick 
wood ; it was gloomy and still. As I came 
near the castle, but while it was yet con- 
cealed from me, the sun set, and the deep, 
deep red light that followed it glared 
through the black trees with a solemnity I 
have never seen exceeded. I now came 
close upon and passed in at the old double 
gate, and, looking into a little ruined chapel 
on the left, found an old woman kindling 
a fire, and a little girl with her, about six 



GERMANY. 109 

years of age. The wardership of this 
ruined castle, the stewardship over a few 
bottles of kirchwasser and schnapps, and 
the privilege of conducting travellers about 
these crumbling walls, are vested in this 
poor family. The little Johanna ( Yohanna) 
tripped lightly before me to point out the 
steps by which you ascend the tower. We 
had not gone many yards when a young 
Paris cit, who had just descended, came 
breathlessly towards me, with a " Monsieur, 
est-ce que vous parlez Francois ?" — " Que 
je suis charme de vous avoir rencontre" — 
" Le bete qrfon ma donne pour me conduire 
ici ne comprend pas un mot" — The undis- 
turbed guide came slowly after, and the 
young Parisian ran on with " Vous allez 
monter, Monsieur" — " Ah I la vue est mag- 
nifique, superbe" — " Mais vous etes dejci 
trop tard" — " Est-ce que je vous accom- 
pagnerai ?" — " Je remonterai" — " Non, 
eh bien, je vous attendrai ici bas. — Vous 
reviendrez bientot. — J7 fera bientot nuit 9 
et je ne crois pas que le chemin soit sure" — 
After extricating myself with not a little 
difficulty from this volunteer companion, 



110 GERMANY. 

I passed on, he calling after me, " Monsieur, 
vous ne resterez pas long temps ; il est deja 
bien tard ; je vous attendrai" — You may, 
methought, — long. 

It was the earliest portion of the twilight 
hour; a light, as of polished steel, still 
lingered on the winding bosom of the fair 
Rhine : a lofty mountain, with a dark crown 
of firs, rose immediately near me, and turn- 
ing, there lay before me the Black Forest. 

" Schwartzwald," was uttered by the 
soft and innocent voice of my little guide. 
The words sounded magically in my ear ; 
the scene at that moment was gloom of the 
deepest The forms of the forest hills 
are wavy and shadowy; the night was falling 
on them. I sent down the little child to 
-her mother, and remained till all was cur- 
tained by blackness. I slowly descended, 
and passed out of the arched gateway, 
without hearing any sound but the slowly- 
uttered " gutte nacht" of the gentle little 
Johanna. It has a kind, a meaning, a pro- 
tecting sound, that "gutte nacht ;" and the 
" felicissima notte" of Italy is a heartless 
piece of business compared to it. 



GERMANY. 1 11 

The effect of a lonely night-walk through 
a wood is alwavs awful ; but when that 
wood is a part of the Black Forest, the one 
shattered pine that leans across your path, 
and the stumps of the many that have been 
cut, and that gleam white and reproach- 
fully, looking like monuments, give a cha- 
racter to the scene which impresses the 
mind with something that, but for religion, 
would be terror, and, in spite of it, par- 
takes of superstition. 

There is a most pleasant walk on the 
other side of Baden, of a very different 
character ; this leads to the convent of 
Lichtenthal. A stream, meadows, cottages, 
a shady avenue, and seats for rest, are the 
objects among which you pass ; and you 
see wood-cutters and sawyers busily en- 
gaged at their clean labours. The court 
of the old convent of Lichtenthal is farm- 
like ; in the quadrangle are stables, imple- 
ments of husbandry, and straw-litter. I 
saw two of the sisterhood cross it in their 
black garbs, with clean white hoods, and 
fair German faces, looking like two figures 
just stepped forth from a canvass of Albert 



112 GERMANY. 

Durer's ; and I heard the innocent, cheer- 
ful sound of children's voices at their 
school-lesson issue from the building that 
they entered. In the centre of the court 
was a fountain, that, with a calm, kind 
tone, responded to, or rather mingled 
with, that peculiar and pleasing murmur. 
There are two chapels : in the large one 
I only remarked, with any attention, 
the tombs of an abbess and of a priest. 
They lay in their strait shapeless length in 
hard stone ; but the sculptor had contrived 
to give to the countenances of both a 
something of softness and expression that 
might almost be called beauty. I notice 
it, because it is seldom, in these recumbent 
figures, we find such a charm ; not but what 
they have charms of a nature peculiar to 
themselves. In the small chapel, near 
these, is a monument to the memory of an 
ancient Margrave, who lies (in armour) a 
huge and shapeless statue or image of stone 
on the top of it, a hound, as shapeless, by 
his side, and his feet resting on a round- 
headed, round-eared monster, which the 



GERMANY. 113 

habit of reading such things with a travel- 
ler's gaze alone enables you to translate 
into a lion. On a tomb, near these, is an- 
other figure of a warrior, lying belted, and 
in chain-armour ; he holds a broken sword. 
He, too, rests his feet on these otter-headed 
lions, and four of them support his tomb. 
The looking on these sights, as I have before 
said, of the old German paintings, is like 
reading old ballads ; snatches of such old 
compositions come to you like remembered 
airs, and furnish appropriate music. 

In my second walk to the old castle I 
started early, took full time, went to the 
rock above the tower, and sated myself 
with the far and glorious view. Here is 
a wooden building, erected for the accom- 
modation of those happy little feasts (pick- 
nicks), which are always among those 
pleasures that youth, and parents who love 
their children, most delight in. The walls 
of this shed are covered with names cut 
with knives, or rudely scrawled in charcoal. 
Here the Legion of Honour is found in 
friendly juxta-position with the order of 
the Black Eagle ; the Austrian prince with 



114 GEKMANY. 

the shop-boy of Strasburg ; and here I saw 
the names of two of my fair countrywomen 
from a fine old English mansion. These 
walks, this scenery, the quietude, the com- 
fort, are very attractive to the taste, and 
I think it one of the most delightful 
places of summer-resort with which I am 
acquainted. I could walk about for ever, 
and not tire of the scene. It is by no 
means a dear place, and, if a man were to 
make for it direct, not at a difficult dis- 
tance, and most conveniently reached across 
France. Here he might learn German, 
read old ballads, listen to music, walk in 
woods, and, if his health required it, take 
the baths. A watering-place has always, 
however, tastes to supply of an inferior 
order ; and, accordingly, there is a pro- 
menade-house, where the fool may lose 
his money, and some knave will be found 
to win it ; and scrawls may be noticed on 
the seats in the gardens exhibiting as little 
decency as sense. The principal spring, 
called the Ursprung, and that styled the 
Hollenquelle, where they literally come 
and scald their fowls, are those visited by 



GERMANY. 115 

strangers as objects of curiosity. The 
antiquarian taste may find an hour's amuse- 
ment in a small museum of Roman monu- 
ments, all of which were collected in or near 
Baden ; and there is a lounging library for 
the hot hours of early noon. It is a place 
which, I should think, few travellers would 
quit without regret. 

On the road from Baden to Strasburg 
I was in a carriage with a chance-collected 
party. We met a young man with a knap- 
sack on his back, very well-looking, and 
decently clad, who ran by our side, and 
stretched forth his hat for alms. No 
Englishman is slow to give the casual six- 
pence, but he rejects at once a petitioner 
of such appearance, and with a feeling of 
anger or contempt. A German in the 
carriage, to judge from externals penu- 
rious in his habits, questioned and relieved 
him. My curiosity was excited, and the 
gratification of it tended to correct a feel- 
ing of prejudice which had arisen out of 
ignorance, and which I rejoiced to have 
removed. 

i 2 



116 GERMANY. 

He told me that it was the custom* 
throughout Germany, for young men learn- 
ing a trade to travel for two or three years, 
taking journey-work in different towns or 
cities in their route, before they settled in 
their calling at home ; that it often hap- 
pened they were disappointed of obtaining 
labour, and not unfrequently had to journey 
long distances, dependent on the liberality 
of those whom they met, or of the town 
where they passed the night. This it was 
delightful to know, as it henceforth became 
a pleasure and a duty to assist them. I 
like not the system ; for I think that it 
must very much unsettle the habits of 
young mechanics ; that it exposes them, at 
a very dangerous age, to great temptation, 
and that it frequently subjects them to 
a state of need not favourable either to 
a becoming spirit of independence or to 
steady industry. It must be confessed, 
however, that there is nothing of the mean 
suppliant in their application ; the hat is 
taken off, and the question is asked in a 
plain, frank manner, and seldom in vain, 



GERMANY. 



117 



for the Germans are a most friendly, gene- 
rous, and a very considerate people. 

Strasburg is a large uninteresting city, 
a frontier garrison, a place of rest, relay, 
and conference for generals and ambas- 
sadors. The inns are still full of the recol- 
lections of the war, and of the great men 
who have occupied their chambers. Here, 
therefore, an unattended traveller is thrust 
into a little cabinet, and any remonstrance is 
met by a smile, or a shrug, or a consolation, 
or, what is worse than all, by an impudent 
assurance that it is the best unoccupied 
apartment in a large, straggling, empty hotel. 
Such was my fate. I consoled myself by 
a good supper and a bottle of excellent 
wine. An English gentleman came into 
the saloon and took coffee opposite to me. 
We naturally fell into conversation ; and as 
the talk of travellers generally runs on tra- 
velling, on what they have seen, and what 
they desire to see, we found out that we 
were bound, for a few days, in the same 
direction. Though averse from a travelling 
companion, especially a stranger, I agreed 

i 3 



118 GERMANY. 

to journey with this gentleman to Schaff- 
hausen through the Hollenthal. My com- 
panion proved a most agreeable, full-minded 
man, with a well-thumbed Euripides in his 
pocket, yet not a word that betrayed the 
pride of a scholar in his converse. 

The tower of Strasburg cathedral is a work 
of wonder and beauty ; tall, massive, when 
seen in shadow, but when the light shines 
through its open tower and spiral turrets it 
seems a fairy structure. I prefer, however, 
and greatly, that of Antwerp : the form is 
more graceful, and has equal majesty. 

In a church in this city is the tomb of 
the celebrated Marshal Saxe. The Mar- 
shal is represented in the act of descending 
into the grave ; a figure of Death is eagerly 
opening the vault with one hand, while in 
the other he holds up an hour-glass, whence 
the last sands have just run out. The figure 
of the Marshal, his attitude, his air, his 
fixed and tranquil gaze, are all noble and 
expressive ; and, whatever may be the con- 
ceits and defects of this monument, as a 
whole, they are abundantly redeemed* by 
that one statue. 



GERMANY. I J 9 

The effect on the beholder will be dif- 
ferent according to his age, his profession, 
his habits of thought, and the spirit of his 
religious impressions. No soldier can look 
upon it without interest ; it seems to say, 
I have always known that this was the end, 
that 

c< The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 

The natural heart throbs with pride to 
see death thus bravely met, thus calmly 
despised ; but that throb is stilled, that 
pride laid in the dust, by one awful thought, 
the force of which has been felt by the very 
haughtiest and most daring intellect of our 
day. It is " the archangel's trump not 
glory's" that shall awaken him and the 
youthful minister whose early death and 
hallowed life are recorded on a modest 
tablet of marble, not far from the encum- 
bered monument of the warrior. The 
nameless persons who gave the humble 
slab, at once briefly and beautifully describe 
the character and worth of the departed, by 
representing themselves as " lugentes amici, 
auditor ex grati" 

i 4 



120 GERMANY. 

One of the most truly characteristic 
figures that I saw in the city of Strasburg 
was a French officer of rank, short in sta- 
ture, with large epaulettes hanging forwards 
upon rounded shoulders, and these last 
raised to the utmost* His sword was tucked 
under his arm like an umbrella, his pace 
rapid and hurrying as a London language- 
master, and his air altogether so unmilitary, 
that you might traverse Germany for such 
a figure in vain. Yet was his breast covered 
with disregarded decorations ; and I could 
not but view that pace as emblematic of the 
restless energy and activity which enabled 
the armies of France to carry the eagles of 
Napoleon wherever his bidding directed 
them. 

The air of the garrison was remarkable. 
The young officers appeared to live through 
the day with laughter, but the older sol- 
diers of humble rank, such as captains, and 
those below them, had that blank air of 
settled disappointment and increasing ennui 
which, though silently ,was yet distinctly and 
continually asking, " Ts this the end ?" — 
" Was it all a dream ?" — " Were we really 



GERMANY. 121 

the conquerors of all Europe ?" Yes, hap- 
pily, it is the end ; and they now mount 
the dull and daily guard peaceably, and with 
as little of pride as may well consist with 
shako and plume, and the treasured re- 
membrance of those electrifying bulletins 
which so pithily recorded their many, and, 
in truth, gallant exploits in arms. 

I think it was from Kehl, only just across 
the river, that Napoleon, in 1809, issued 
one of those brief orders to his army on 
suddenly joining and putting it in motion, 
which at once prophesied and produced his 
triumphs. It called to the recollection of 
the soldiers, that they were round him in 
his camp-hut in Moravia, when Austria 
swore eternal friendship and fidelity to 
him ; it spoke of moderation and gene- 
rosity to that power (with little regard to 
truth) ; it accused her of breaking a solemn 
treaty by passing the line of demarcation, 
and thus commencing hostilities ; it boasted 
that, on hearing this news, he had flown to 
them with the rapidity of the eagle, and 
it closed with these remarkable words ; — - 



122 GERMANY. 

" Marckons, et qiid vue de nous, que les Au- 
trichiens reconnoissent leurs vainqueurs" 

The gentleman whom I had fallen in 
with and myself took a carriage between 
us to Schaffhausen. 

Our first halt for refreshment on the road 
to Friburgh was at a small town, the name 
of which I have forgotten, though I well re- 
member how the aspect of the long old 
street delighted me. Its quaint fronts, and 
its numerous bay-windows, are striking fea- 
tures, although these last might be judged 
useless to all such old women as delight in 
sitting at them, for not a human being was 
moving in that street save ourselves ; not a 
boot-tramp, not an urchin at play, or a 
child crying ; not a girl tripping to draw 
water : by the way, the German girls in 
this part of the world do not trip, but they 
plant a foot, and that none of the smallest, 
firm, flat, and heavily on the earth. The inn 
where we alighted was distinguished, even 
in this old place, by superior antiquity of 
front, being richly ornamented with old 
black carved wood-work. 



GERMANY. 123 

The landlord came to the door, not out, 
and saluted us ; then asked the driver, 
while we were descending, if we spoke 
German, and if we wanted dinner ; which 
last question he repeated to us as we en- 
tered the house, and being replied to in the 
affirmative, he walked slowly to order it. 
The room was quite a picture: — several 
old heavy tables ; long old black settles 
against the walls, and a few solid wooden 
chairs made to outlast many a generation 
of smokers. Some coarse young boors were 
drinking at one table, an old wayfaring man 
taking ein zuppen at another ; while a third 
was slowly and deliberately covered with a 
clean white napkin for us. This the old 
hostess, who was engaged in the middle of 
the room mangling great quantities of 
household linen at a heavy press of black 
wood, delivered to him from a countless 
store in which she seemed to pride her- 
self, and then resumed her occupation 
with a plain unbustling air. Now, for 
travellers, who go to see, this kind of 
thing is most pleasant, — for those (and there 
are many) who go to make a little parade 



124 GERMANY. 

and display, it must be somewhat mor- 
tifying. Ourselves at one table, our driver 
at another, the old wayfaring man, the 
young boors, were all served with like at- 
tention of manner. Our fare was good, our 
wine excellent. The host said a word at 
one table, a " guten appetite 9 at another, 
and then chatted with his wife, who quietly 
mangled piece after piece, and looked about 
the room with the air that she would if a 
set of children were feeding before her ; — 
acknowledged objects of her care, but to 
whom she did not feel responsible. 

The masters of these kind of country 
inns in Germany are often represented by 
travellers as surly, deficient in courtesy, 
and unwilling to accommodate. It is not 
impossible that some of them, having suf- 
fered not a little from haughty exacting 
travellers, may intrench themselves against 
impertinence by a sullen demeanour, and 
that a few scattered individuals may here, 
as in all countries, be dull or brutal ; but 
thus, generally, to characterise the German 
landlord is unfaithful, and not fair. The 
truth is, the man feels himself the master 



GERMANY. 125 

of his own house : he receives strangers 
without obsequiousness, without any very 
eager desire to pick their pockets, but as a 
plain host ready to supply their wants when 
made acquainted with them ; and if, while 
they are under his roof, he likes their man- 
ner, his own will, in some degree, warm up 
to it. 

Such was the impression I received, and 
I found it repeatedly confirmed. 

Go where you will in Germany the per- 
sonal independence of the individual Ger- 
man strikes you very forcibly ; and it is, 
perhaps, the kind of contentment which 
this generates, combined with a conscious- 
ness that Germany can never be one great 
united nation, which renders him so indif- 
ferent to political changes, so little inclined 
to stir and rouse himself to produce them. 
The word Father-land is indeed a talisman 
of acknowledged power ; it unites, for the 
moment, all true German hearts ; and their 
language, that seems not only to be printed, 
but to be spoken, in black letter, is another. 

We slept at Emmedingen, where there 
is a good inn of the city stamp. The tra- 



126 GERMANY. 

veller finds comfort, cleanliness, and ci- 
vility. We drove through a very beautiful 
country on a most pleasant morning to 
Friburgh. This city has a particularly bright, 
cheerful look; and it being market-day, and 
all the peasantry filling the streets in their 
holiday costume, the scene was very en- 
livening. 

The pride of Friburgh is its cathedral. 
It is among the oldest in Germany. Its 
tower with the spire, by which it is sur- 
mounted, is five hundred and thirteen feet 
in height, and is said to vie for renown with 
that of Strasburg. Seen from below or 
from a distance, it certainly does not pro- 
duce an effect so imposing. Moreover, the 
site here is unfavourable ; for hills of a bold 
and abrupt elevation arise too near, and 
such character of stately grandeur as we 
naturally associate with loftiness is thus 
altogether lost. But when you ascend the 
tower and pass into a large hollow spire of 
open stone-work, wreathed and twisted as 
fancifully as an elegant toy might be, yet 
of a strength that has defied ages, you 
are powerfully struck with the taste of the 

19 



GERMANY. 127 

design, with the labour, and daring of the 
execution. A light beautiful thing to look 
up through to the blue sky, and out upon 
the leafy hills : — a moonlight hour there 
would be magical. It were worth some 
delay to see it in the noon of a bright 
night, — a temple, as it were, above a tem- 
ple ; such as the Persian might have wor- 
shipped in ; as open to the light and air of 
heaven as a mountain's top ; a place where 
you almost fancy that angels might de- 
light to gather and stand with white wings 
folded, and all attent for human sighs ; 
those sighs which grateful love, when 
chance awakened in the still night, breathes 
to a God of mercy. 

The choir of this cathedral is kept too 
clean ; the wood-work shines with the oil 
and varnish of yesterday ; the white and 
yellow washes on the walls looked fresh ; 
the pictures and their frames were clean. 
In cathedrals I love " dusty splendour." 
Those words, how T ever, stand alone for the 
banner-tapestried roof of some vast and 
glorious pile, like our Westminster-abbey. 



128 GERMANY. 

There is an university in this city. In the 
saloon of the inn where we breakfasted 
we observed several heads of the small 
roebuck, a game that abounds in the 
mountains near. The table d'hote was laid 
for the dinner of noon; it was a table fre- 
quented by several of the students. I no- 
ticed one napkin-holder embroidered in the 
fashion of our old samplers at home. Do 
they still exist, by the way, in dear Old 
England, these samplers ? are they still 
worked by the simple daughters of our 
honest farmers ? The inscription on this 
was, " Ansicht in alles" — " Foresight in all 
things," — the sensible caution of some pru- 
dent mother ; and very honourable was it 
to see that the young man to whom it be- 
longed could fearlessly use it in public 
among his associates. I should like to 
have seen such a youth ; but we set for- 
ward again before the party assembled. 
The fact is, that you cannot laugh home 
out of a young German's heart. I will 
venture to say, that any person, thoroughly 
conversant in the German language, might 



GERMANY. 129 

try the experiment upon German feeling, 
among the wildest of the young biirschen 
in Jena, or any where else, and find the 
response most prompt, affecting, and true. 
Our route now lay through the Hollen- 
thal : this is a very disappointing mis- 
nomer : you prepare your mind for horrors, 
true German horrors, impending cliffs, and 
black pines that topple on them, and cast 
eternal shades ; huge masses of rock hang- 
ing in those frightfully-suspended frag- 
ments that menace the traveller, every 
moment, with a crushing death, and the 
torrent's voice, and the boiling bubble of 
waters that have fallen headlong from high 
steeps. These things your fancy images 
forth in the Hollenthal, the Valley of Hell. 
Well, there is nothing of all this : in parts 
where the defile becomes narrow, the 
scenery is romantic and bold, but no where 
has it any character of sublimity or terror ; 
on the contrary, by far the greater part of 
the route it is softly beautiful, a sheltered, 
secure, peaceful vale. About the middle of 
it we stopped to refresh, at a clean, de- 
lightful little inn, Welsh-like. It is situ- 

K 



130 GERMANY. 

ated in one of those sweet spots, on which, 
if a man has ever gazed, he is sure to think 
again, when care or sorrow press upon him. 
It is a place to linger in, never to leave ; 
the sights are velvet meadows and shelter- 
ing hills, and black fir-screens, and cottages, 
house-cottages for large families, with pent- 
house roofs, or broad projecting eaves, and 
covered all over with shingles, or tiles of 
wood, being at once the most serviceable 
and tasteful dwellings. I never saw any 
thing, in their way, more beautifully neat 
than the small wooden tiles. To these ob- 
jects may be added clear, sparkling, and 
glassy streams ; — not forgetting their 
sounds ; — the cheerful, happy rushing 
down ; — and their busier talk as they turn 
the water-wheels of clean saw mills, and are 
sung to by contented labourers. 

On the day on which we passed the Hol- 
lenthal, almost all through the valley they 
were getting in their after-grass ; and no- 
thing could be more picturesque than 
the effect of the many groupes of hay- 
makers, — first, from the beautiful site of 
almost all these meadows, ■ — next, from 



GERMANY. 131 

the rustic taste of the peasants : they wear 
broad straw hats, which, being painted 
straw-colour, preserve a new brightness, 
and look summer-like and rational, con- 
veying an idea of enjoyment, which we are 
always happy to think may be associated 
with labour. As we passed up out of this 
valley, we gained a country open, but still 
hilly, and still beautiful, a wild, a dreary 
beauty, such as suited with the blue cold 
grey of that evening's sky, and prepared 
us, as the night fell, to desire any resting- 
place, and taught us content with that we 
found. It was a small, wretched cabaret : 
here, a dish of thin soup, made from the 
field-pea, a rag of black meat, and bread 
and wine alike sour, made us glad to creep 
between coarse paillasses of straw, and for- 
get that they were not down, and that our 
fare had not been more palatable and 
wholesome. We departed very early in 
the morning : at a village on the road we 
saw a funeral, attended* apparently, by the 
entire population of it : all were dressed 
coarsely, but decently and alike, and the 

k 2 



132 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

scene was gratifying. The same afternoon 
we reached SchafFhausen. 

Switzerland is to no thinking mind a 
strange country : we form acquaintance 
with it in books, in drawings, in models, 
by every after-dinner talk: dine where you 
will, some man has seen the lake of Geneva 
and Montblanc ; and you can ask no ques- 
tion about Switzerland at table, but some 
person is ready with a reply. Conscious 
of this, and having seen but a small tract 
of it, and that only in passing, yet can I not 
resist the pleasure of recording, briefly, 
what I saw and felt, in a very short traverse 
of that most interesting line of country, 
from SchafFhausen to the St. Gothard. This 
is German Switzerland, and partakes, in 
many ways, of the sober and sterling cha- 
racter of the father-land. The town of 
SchafFhausen is German in aspect, the 
houses quaint and old-fashioned, the ap- 
pearance of the people staid and quiet, and 
their dress plain, and without any singu- 
larity. A few peasant women, whom I 
saw on the bridge, wore a head-dress of 
black crape, not becoming, but yet inter- 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 133 

esting to the stranger's eye, as the pro- 
vincial costume of the lower orders. 

My companion and myself strolled slowly 
about the town, and among the quiet gar- 
dens in the suburbs, and at last seated our- 
selves on a low wall, just without the gate, 
close by the Rhine, at that point where its 
blue waters roll, in a glassy volume, over 
a gentle fall or break in the river's bed. 
Smoothly they glide, even as youth, all 
smiling and unwrinkled, and most gently 
overflow ; then is their clear beauty gone, 
and they break in troubled foam below. 

There is no converse like social silence 
on such a spot ; no painting, no poetry, no 
music, like such a scene, and such sounds. 
The soul is mysteriously moved, and 
answers to that " ceaseless flow," that 
voice eternal, with a feeling that assures 
to it its own immortality. 

The next day we drove to the falls. I 
am told they generally disappoint travel- 
lers; what, then, do they expect? San- 
guine as I am, and much as I have seen, 
my expectations were surpassed. Visiting 
them, as we did, from SchafThausen, our 

k 3 



134 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

views came exactly in the order which I 
should, under any circumstances, prefer. 
For a great part of our drive we could see 
the waters in their ordinary flow ; here, 
deeply blue ; there, glancing green ; there, 
feathering in the eddy : but, as they ap- 
proach the rocks, their motion slackens to 
a calm, slow roll, with a smooth surface. 
For a little while you lose sight of them, 
but you hear them ; not, however, very 
loud. You now enter the castle of Laufen, 
and, going into a small summer-house, lean 
from the window, and look immediately 
down upon the fall. Broken in its course 
by large fragments of rock, which rear 
their wet heads above the rushing waters, 
the Rhine angrily divides itself into five 
columns, two of amazing grandeur, and, 
bursting past these barriers, breaks in a 
sea of foam, and a voice of thunder, below. 
It is a fine thing to lean over, and feel the 
spray which they toss up at you, and to 
hear their loud and conquering rush. Next, 
you pass to a gallery below, built in under 
the rock, and close to the great mass of the 
largest body of water. I went over the 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 135 

slippery plank, and leaned upon the rail — 
wet and trembling — not with fear ; every 
thing trembles ; the board you stand on, 
the rail which you lean upon, the trees 
on the nearest islet; the very rock looks 
unsteady as you gaze. It is impossible 
to stand here without experiencing the 
strongest, yet sweetest emotions. There 
is awe sublime, and yet present confidence : 
you know that the waters have their 
bounds, which they cannot pass ; the hand 
of Him who walked the waves, and re- 
buked the storm, upholds and reins them, 
as they leap their headlong course, and 
that, too, with fearful roarings, as if they 
lived, and could, and would, but for the 
God who holds them chained, and guides 
their mad career, devour you. You ad- 
mire, but you tremble as you admire. Thus, 
near the bars of a new-caught lion's den, 
as they see him chafe, and hear his loud 
forest-voice, the safe crowd stand back- 
warder in fear. I think the Rhine falls 
glorious : the view I least enjoyed is the 
full front one from the house or mill on the 
other side of the river, and that in crossing 

k 4 



13G GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

is like it. There is not height enough 
then, and the spread is too great. Three 
German students stepped into the boat as 
we got out, with knapsacks on their backs, 
and staves in their hands, and sung to- 
gether, as the young and the happy may, and 
should. We went to the camera obscura, 
because it is usual, and therefore right to 
give the expected fee ; but I confess that 
I like not rocks and rivers so represented. 
A camera obscura I can be amused by for 
hours, when man is the thing exhibited, — 
man Lilliputianised. It is a fine lesson of 
humility to see thus a crowded and fashion- 
able esplanade, a race-course, a review, a 
procession ; but a mountain and a water- 
fall should never be reduced to miniature 
size, save by the draughtsman, where, as he 
can never give the hue of nature and the 
motion of life, you take his sketch, as it is 
intended, for a memento, an aid to the 
memory and the imagination. 

We proceeded on our route, and dined 
at Winterthur. After our repast we walked 
forwards, leaving the carriage to overtake 
us. The road is pleasant: the country 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 137 

residences have a look of plain comfort, 
but little of taste. The two villages w r e 
passed were not clean, and the appearance 
of the peasantry very disappointing. Such 
trifling disappointments, however, are at 
once forgotten as you ascend the higher 
ground, and see, far on your left, a line 
of Alps crowned with snows, and clothed 
grandly in majestic shadows. The day was 
of that fitful cast, now bright, now summer 
cloud, that at first we asked, are they of 
our world, or of that heavenly one above 
us ? But, as the eye caught, and clearly 
took in, the fixed outline, and realised their 
giant forms, we recognised the great fea- 
tures of that scenery which hallows all the 
land. 

I think that Zurich has been overrated : 
the city is ill, and not conveniently, built. 
The environs are beautiful : the view from 
the promenade up the lake is a fine thing, 
from which you are slow to turn away. 

We visited the library, where are pre- 
served the letters of Lady Jane Grey to 
Bullinger. The hand-writing is the beau- 
tiful scholar-hand of the period in which 



138 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

she lived. My companion kissed her sig- 
nature (for which I liked him the better) : 
perhaps I should have done so, had I been 
alone ; but without you originate an act of 
folly it has no charm for you. We went to 
the armory, and, among other relics, saw 
the cross-bow of William Tell. The name 
and the fame of Tell are one, and enough ; 
but in this part of Switzerland they serve 
it up after a fashion most offensive to taste : 
not an inn do you enter but a set of French 
prints stare at you from the walls, where 
this self-ennobled peasant is most pro- 
vokingly represented in a pair of tight 
white pantaloons, chapeau a plume, veste a 
la Milanese , and bottes au Hongrois, just, in 
fact, as some artiste is made to screech the 
part in an opera, or pirouette it in a ballet 
at Paris. This is intolerable, and speaks 
volumes for the regular inn-tour of Swit- 
zerland. 

One of the most interesting spots in 
Zurich is the small still square containing 
the church in which Lavater preached, and 
the house in which he dwelt. From a low 
wall you can look down into the garden, 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 139 

where he was wont to walk, and in or near 
which he was slain, when the fierce troops 
of Massena possessed themselves of this 
helpless and unoffending city. 

The route towards Zug is delightful. 
The views of the Zurich lake are enchant- 
ing, and ever varying. The look back upon 
the city in ascending a hill a few miles dis- 
tant is particularly fine ; and as you drive 
forward, new features of the lake open at 
every step. 

As we crossed the Mount Albis, and 
began to descend, of a sudden there burst 
upon our sight Alps in their white raiment. 
Mount Righi and Mount Pilate stood on 
either side of this picture in the fore- 
ground, and their dark and wild forms, 
especially that of Pilate, gave a wonderful 
effect to the snowy summits, which filled 
the centre and back-ground, and rose pure 
and clear into the blue sky. The scene had 
a stilling power. Your senses are after- 
wards relieved and lulled by the soft green 
beauties through which Zug is approached. 
The inn at Zug is quiet and silent ; so is 
the place itself. There is a small maison de 



140 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

campagne here about a mile and a half from 
the town, situated most delightfully, and 
commanding a view which combines all that 
is lovely and magnificent. There is an old 
painted chamber in this chateau where are 
the portraits of all the kings of France, and 
where Tell is represented on the walls other 
than in the print from the passage Feydeau. 
There is a small painted oratory in this 
building with a little gallery-closet above : 
in the garden is a summer-house for even- 
tide. It is altogether a sweet spot : I saw 
not one in my brief passage through the 
land where I would so gladly have anchored 
for life. Our guide led us from hence to a 
cemetery. The graves are all surmounted 
by crosses of figured iron-work, upheld by 
painted metal cherubim, with texts and 
little pictures of the Virgin, or the Passion, 
or Crucifixion, or some martyrdom, and 
there is a great profusion of gilding on these 
crosses. There is also a large grated ossu- 
ary, where the piled skulls are preserved, 
and on, or underneath many of them, on a 
pasted slip of paper, you read the name of 
the dead. Most painful sights these. I 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 141 

like not gilding on the grave; still less do 
I like to see a name, that thing which calls 
up features, and all that may have been 
endearing in their expression, written upon 
a sightless, fleshless skull. There are some 
flowers planted near the tombs. This is 
well, and the only thing that relieves the 
feeling of the pensive mourner. I would 
have fresh turf and early flowers and ever- 
green shrubs in all burial grounds ; and 
trees, (not the black yew) but green trees, 
should spread their pleasant shadows over 
the still tenants of silent graves, who rest 
from their labours. 

Two men, assisted by a woman, rowed 
us across the lake of Zug. This small 
lake is, in its kind, and for its size, perfect. 
On the left mountain heights, a chapel 
(St. Adrian) at their feet ; to your right, a 
pleasant bay ; before you, the village of Art ; 
and uprising from the lake, on the right of 
Art, the royal Righi. r We refreshed our- 
selves at Art, and ascended this monarch 
of mountains from Goldau. Where is 
Goldau ? you ask. It was here, is the 
reply, as you arrive in a desolate vale, 



142 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

filled with huge fragments of rock, which 
have bedded themselves in the earth and 
are overgrown with grass. All over the 
plain, where these lie, are huge heaps of 
poor thin mountain soil, which fell to- 
gether with those masses of rock on the 
fatal second of September, 1806. On this 
melancholy day, so memorable in this sweet 
neighbourhood, a vast portion of the Mount 
Roethan loosened by heavy and continued 
rains, after the short and awful menace of 
a few falling stones, the rising of disturbed 
and affrighted birds, a subterraneous sound 
as of the breaking of strong roots, and the 
rocking of dark straight pines, rushed, rapid 
as the waters of a torrent, upon Goldau, 
and silenced the village bells, and the poor 
flock that knew their joyful sound, for ever. 
More than one hundred cottages were 
destroyed, and four hundred persons pe- 
rished. The cheerful guide, who was ac- 
companying the pleasure party up the 
Righi, on that morning, started at the ter- 
rific noise, looked back, and saw the end 
of his little world. The Swiss soldier, in 
his distant camp, learned that he had lost. 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 143 

in one short moment, all his kindred, — all 
the tombs of his forefathers ; that the very 
font, in which he was christened, was a 
broken and buried stone, and the place of 
his nativity no more. 

It is well to climb on one of the masses 
of rock and ruin, and to gaze around you ; 
well, as you ascend the Righi, often to 
pause and turn the head, and look steadily 
at this spot, brown, desolate, and unfer- 
tile, save where, here and there, a lit- 
tle coarse grass is mowed for fodder, — 
mowed by some grey and widowed la- 
bourer, who works slowly and brokenly as 
the thought of other days comes o'er his 
blank mind, and fills it with the painful 
memory of all that he has long lost. 

The pathway up the mountain is fine. 
First it lies through green and sloping mea- 
dows, then on among black pines and naked 
hills, and falling streams. We passed 
through the hospice, and only saw one 
face, that looked from one of the mountain 
inns, chilly and uninvitingly, and that 
soured as we passed on. We slept at a 
rude cottage auberge, considerably higher, 



144 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

where, as night now fell, we determined to 
sleep, and to go before day-break to the 
summit of the mountain. 

Nothing could be more confused and 
noisy than the guest-chamber : a party of 
scholars, most * of them boys, and some 
travelling students from Germany, filled it 
with clamour. Tea, punch, bad food, and 
bad wine, were noisily called for, and 
noisily consumed amid clouds of smoke. 
We were fortunate enough to get each a 
little chamber to ourselves. Mine was a 
clean closet, and, though small, cool with 
the mountain air; a healthy and a happy 
sleeping place. The morning brought its 
disappointment. The guide awoke me to 
say, that there was a heavy fog, and that 
we should be able to see nothing at sun- 
rise whatever. We did not, therefore, 
rise till it was light, and then proceeded 
up towards the Coulme. We met several 
parties descending : in one I recognized an 
acquaintance, who gave the natural re- 
proach for not sleeping on the Coulme, and 
being up and out before dawn, but added 
the frank confession, that it had been im- 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 145 

possible to see any thing from the state of 
the atmosphere. Now did I feel in high 
good fortune, for I saw signs of clearer 
weather. We went on ; breakfasted lei- 
surely in the deserted hostel ; the fog passed 
away, and we had a full and satisfying view 
of the Alpine chain. Moreover, we had 
the mountain-top to ourselves, to enjoy it 
undisturbed by any of those large travelling 
groups who herd at appointed hours in 
appointed places, with guide-books open, 
maps flying in the wind, and guides' fingers 
pointing in every direction : this last thing 
you cannot well avoid. The better way is 
to submit, follow his finger, let him name 
the heads and peaks of all the summits in 
your sight, and get rid of him as soon and 
as easily as you most probably will of the 
greater part of his information. A few, 
indeed, of the rude expressive names strike 
finely upon the ear, and carry back the 
mind to the rough and noble race by whom 
they probably were first given. But a long 
list of names perplexes, without interesting 
the beholder, To the eye, to the mind, it 
is the vast, the grand, the mighty moun- 

L 



146 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

tain-crowd, — their glorious apparel, their 
wild array, head behind head, here snowy, 
there black, all still, — a world in them- 
selves, — nothing to live, and play, and move 
upon them, but the sunbeam and the sha- 
dow. When sated with this most sublime 
picture of the majesty of the Creator, you 
look below, there lies at the very mountain- 
foot the little Lake of Zug, — a thing, thus 
seen, of the most delicate and fairy beauty ; 
for it is but as a small green gem of the most 
transparent water. 

The descent of the Righi, on the Kus- 
nacht side, presents a succession of fine 
views. About a third of the way down we 
met two peasant girls of Lucerne going up 
to the chapel at the hospice, in the full 
costume of their province. This is Switzer- 
land; this is costume; nothing can, in its 
way, be more perfect : it is better than 
Arcadian, — the plain look pretty in it, the 
pretty, charming. A round, flat straw-hat 
sits lightly on the very crown of the head ; 
the glossy hair is parted across the forehead, 
and falls in two long braids behind, inter- 
woven and adorned with a riband of pink ; 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 147 

a neck-kerchief, of a pretty plaid-like check, 
is wrapped flatly and modestly over the 
bosom, nearly to the throat; round the 
white throat is a collar of black velvet ; the 
white sleeves of the under vest hang full 
and loose at the shoulder, leaving bare the 
fore-arm ; a coloured corset with coloured 
strings, a coloured apron, all rustic, and all 
in keeping ; with a stocking of white, and a 
shoe-tie of red riband, complete the picture. 

What wonder that the manly Swiss drew 
their brave bows against Gessler and his 
mercenaries, with wives and daughters 
looking thus ? 

It is with a feeling of deep delight that 
the traveller stands before the small and 
still revered chapel of Tell. It is erected 
on the very spot where he lay wait for the 
tyrant Gessler, and first levelled an arrow 
against the life of a fellow-creature. A group 
of boys and peasant-girls were sitting near 
it. An old woman is the guardian of it ; and 
a rude painting on the wall commemorates 
TelPs history. 

We walked slowly into the town. The 
church bells were ringing, and all the in- 

l 2 



148 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

habitants hurrying there in their holiday 
dresses. The men appear to have pre- 
served little remarkable in their costume ; 
but the women were either dressed as I 
have described above or with caps, some of 
white muslin, others of black crape, with 
high fan-like crests, something like the 
crest of Achilles ; or, to be homely, that 
of a domestic cock. I stood in the church- 
yard, and watched the congregation coming 
in. There are flowers here among the 
monumental crosses, and near most of 
them a small metal vase of holy water. I 
observed that almost all the passers-by 
sprinkled water on some grave, and crossed 
themselves, and uttered a brief prayer : 
near the more recently erected crosses 
some longer paused, and heaved the un- 
availing sigh. 

Among the female peasants was one 
about sixteen years of age, with the tasteful 
straw hat, and braids of dark brown hair 
that hung nearly the length of her dress. 
She was as innocently beautiful a being of 
her happy lowly class as I ever beheld. It 
is to be hoped that they will not send her 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 149 

to sell their market-produce at Lucerne. It 
is related in that city, that a peasant girl of 
the neighbourhood, who frequented their 
markets some few years ago, and who, from 
herexceedingloveliness,andthathappy taste 
which is so natural to, and so dangerous a 
gift in the lovely, so dressed in the costume 
of her country as to become the model of it, 
was seen by a wealthy traveller, desired, 
and purchased — purchased by the vilest 
means, and in the most heartless manner — 
purchased for one midnight-hour, and sent 
back polluted to her mountain-home, with 
the wages of dishonour for a dowry, to 
bribe the first suitor, poor in spirit as in 
purse, who might take the sullied lily. 
Have not cities their stews ? Be not cities 
the places man has made that he may dwell 
with his darling sins in a fitting atmo- 
sphere ? But the shore of the lake, and the 
valley of the mountain, can he not leave 
them free? Must he bring his accursed 
gold to them ? — and if he is to play seducer 
with a purse, will not some tainted tawdry 
thing, inviting her ruin and welcoming cor- 
ruption, serve his base turn ? — why come to 

l 3 



150 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

the mountain peasant-girl? The crime of 
such conduct may be thought by sound 
minds and cold judgments the same in 
either case ; yet, I confess, to woo, to win, 
to destroy the innocence of an ignorant, 
and, in so far, helpless rustic, does seem to 
me a guilt of deeper dye. How can such 
a, man climb the rocky summit, tread upon 
the cracking glacier, cross the blue chasm, 
move by the precipice's side, and hang 
over the roaring torrent? Will they not 
speak reproaches to him even as the voice 
of God ? Will they not deny to him that 
sublime pleasure which they can minister 
to the soul of man ; and send him back from 
their pure regions with a heart stony and 
unmoved, with a mind unsatisfied, disap- 
pointed, and impatient of their solitudes? — 
I think so, and I hope that I am not mis- 
taken. 

The inn at Kusnacht commands a most 
delightful view of the lake from its win- 
dows. As we sat at our repast, the organ 
and the assembled voices of the peasant 
congregation in the church near rose in 
swelling and praiseful notes to Heaven. 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 151 

The scene of the morning in my memory, 
the figures I had met, the view from the 
window, the frank hospitality of the people 
of the house, the simple and grateful fare 
before us, the resting here, and thus, will 
cause me long to recollect the spot and the 
moment with a feeling of unmingled gra- 
titude for a draught of no common hap- 
piness. 

The row upon the lake from Kusnacht to 
Lucerne is beautiful ; and there was yet day 
enough when we reached the city for us to 
saunter along the curious old wooden bridge, 
and to pass round the city-walls by a pleasant 
path which leads across the meads on the 
hill above them. In one of the most re- 
tired of these fields we met a young Ger- 
man student, with " horrid hair," who 
certainly looked suspicious and guilty. We 
thought, from many infallible indications, 
that he was just finishing the last act of 
some bloody tragedy, and probably giving 
the coup de grace to his hero. We were 
walking so provokingly slow, that he had 
to compress the god within him for many 
minutes. In the morning we visited the 

l 4 



152 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

church, the arsenal, and examined more 
leisurely the paintings on the bridge. There 
is an object near Lucerne that no traveller 
should leave the place without visiting, and 
on which no one can gaze unmoved : — it is 
a monument to the memory of the Swiss 
Guards, who fell on the memorable 10th 
of August, 1792. The design is truly noble, 
and the execution very affecting and ex- 
pressive. Upon the face of a rude and 
scarped rock, in a retired spot not far from 
the gates, a lion has been sculptured in full 
and bold relief, and of a colossal size. The 
shaft of a huge spear, broken short off, just 
appears above the side ; the iron head, 
which has given the death-wound, is buried 
deep within. The royal beast reclines his 
head on his fore-paw, which still grasps a 
shield (as though to guard it), with lilies 
on its field ; another, with the cross, stands 
near, and weapons that have been used and 
broken in the struggle lie by its side. The 
eye of the noble animal isnot yet quite closed, 
and the feeble growl of a fidelity, that must 
soon cease to avail for any purpose of de- 
fence, seems parting, only with the last 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 153 

gasp of life, from the open and relaxing 
jaws. 

In large letters above is sculptured — 

HELVETIORUM FIDEI AC VIRTUTI. 

The inscription beneath the monument 
records the numbers lost, and the names of 
the officers who fell. 

It is not often that we can allow our- 
selves to be so strongly moved over the 
grave of mercenaries as here. But the 
fidelity, born of honour, gratitude, and a 
reverence for the soldier's oath, displayed 
by these men, when the tempest of adver- 
sity fell most heavily on their royal patrons, 
and when the desertion of them might have 
secured not only life but reward, nay, fu- 
ture distinction, (and I need hardly add, 
amid draughts of prosperity a quick obli- 
vion of their crime,) demands the tribute 
of honest tears, and deserves to be thus 
recorded. 

We took a boat from Lucerne to Altorf. 
If there is any lake-scenery in Switzerland 
which can, by any possibility, surpass this 



154 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

of the four cantons, I strive in vain to 
image to myself what it can present. The 
day was most favourable ; for the first hour 
or more all sunshine, and the water calm 
and like a mirror ; then clouds and a fresher 
breeze, winds and young waves. It was a 
scene of rare majesty: the mountains around 
are magnificent, and many of the cliffs are 
scarped and inaccessible. The shadows and 
the gleamy green ; the few black chalets, 
and the white chapels ; the mountaineer's 
long- cry, and the tinkling bells, — who 
shall describe these things ? None can — 
no, not the very finest of our poets : his 
choicest words, his finest melody of verse 
must fail him. There are objects in such 
scenery, and hues on them, for which lan- 
guage has no names ; and there is a hal- 
lowed music " i' the air," breathing over 
all, which the mind's ear alone is formed 
to listen to, and having listened to, does 
for a while deem lightly of a mortal's 
harping. 

You pass a chapel dedicated to Tell, at 
the rocky point, where, in the storm, he 
leaped upon the shore ; and, after you land, 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 155 

as you go up into Altorf, you pass the famed 
meadow, the Rutlin. 

Altorf is a town as dull, as blank, as still 
as a convent-wall. In the silent market- 
place is a tall unsightly tower : it would 
offend your eye, did not an inscription 
remind you, that here stood the far-famed 
tree ; here the boy leaned, the apple on his 
young head ; here sat the tyrant Gessler ; 
here stood the father, Tell. The shout that 
followed on his God-guided arrow was 
echoed back from the mountains instantly. 
They are so close, you almost fancy the 
outstretched arm could touch them ; as 
you raise your eyes, they seem looking 
down into the square. They are of uncom- 
mon majesty. To think that man should 
dare to play the tyrant so near them ! 

The inn at Altorf is not without interest : 
there is an old Italianised waiter, and a fine 
old woman, who waits also, and is quite a 
portrait. She had a black crape head- 
dress, having the true Schweitz or Achilles 
crest, and her grey hairs all drawn up, and 
back from her forehead and temples, tight, 
smooth, and cleanly. Her face was full, 



156 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

round, and rosy as the clean-shaved, well- 
fed canon of a cathedral ; and, in truth, but 
for the corset and petticoat, she did greatly 
resemble such canons as you find a few 
of, in all countries where there are fair com- 
plexions. 

Some old pictures hang upon the walls 
here, which have found their way from 
some plundered mansion on the other side 
of the Alps long ago ; and you see the cut 
melon, the clustered grapes, the broken 
pomegranate, the wine in its flask, the thin 
glasses, the ices, and the horn-spoons for 
them, — just as they gave, and give, and 
will for ever give them in Italy, the indo- 
lent and unchanging. 

We proceeded, on the following morn- 
ing, up the valley of the Reuss. It is a 
most grand, soul-satisfying scene. We 
took refreshment in a true cottage-inn, 
with panelled chamber and painted cru- 
cifix, and on again through this grand 
valley. There is one vast mountain, with 
a naked rocky head, which, go on as far as 
you may, seems ever close above you, in 
stern repose ; as though, like the unclosing 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 157 

eye of the invisible Creator, it watched you 
in your passage. The torrent of the Reuss 
talks wildly all the way. The only part of 
this valley which, fine as it is, at all dis- 
appointed me, was the Pont du Diable : 
the much-exaggerated account of its sub- 
lime beauties, or terrors rather, is not at all 
borne out by fact ; there are finer spots 
along the vale. The rocks on the road, 
above the Pont du Diable, have, indeed, 
a fine, wild character. When you pass 
through the pierced gallery in these rocks, 
and come out upon the still, tranquil vale of 
Andermatt, the effect is astonishing : there 
are no trees, but there is a lovely verdure on 
the earth. The loneliness, however, of this 
spot is its greatest charm : the walk through 
it is the realising a page of some old fairy 
tale. We went forward to the village of 
Hospital to sleep : it was already dark when 
we arrived. In the guest-chamber we found 
a Hanoverian officer and an English gen- 
tleman at supper, whom we had before 
seen at Zurich, and crossed at other points 
of our route. My companion, who de- 
signed turning back into Switzerland from 



158 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

this place, and revelling among the strange 
beauties of the vale of Chamouny, and the 
Mer de Glace, employed the next day in a 
short excursion to the hospice of St. Go- 
thard. As I designed crossing into Italy the 
day after, I, on the morrow, hired a horse 
and guide, and visited the glacier of the 
Rhone. Fortunate and satisfied as I had 
been in the society of the gentleman who 
had lately been my companion, I quietly 
rejoiced in my spirit as I found myself 
riding alone up a solitary mountain-path, 
which, after quitting Hospital, is only 
broken by a small hospice and a few goat- 
herds' huts. It takes four hours to ascend 
the Furca : it is a long sloping vale, be- 
tween two ridges of lofty mountains, through 
which the track lies. The Reuss, here a 
small summer-stream, at the bottom of a 
deeper and more rugged-winter bed, flows 
past you nearly all the way. Its course is 
slightly impeded, here and there, by rock 
and stone ; but this gives it great life, and 
it tumbles and babbles cheerfully down the 
mountain- vale, like a happy boy rolling and 
making holiday on a green hill-side. In 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 159 

parts, the bridle-path is very narrow, and 
passes along the side of a hill not exactly 
precipitous, but so steep as certainly to be 
dangerous, although it has nowhere that 
terrific appearance which some tourists have 
spoken of. Still, a slip could not easily be 
recovered, and both horse and rider might 
fall into the stream far beneath, and be se- 
riously injured, if not destroyed. Such 
accidents, however, are rare, and the possi- 
bility of their occurrence was only anxi- 
ously suggested to my mind by the sight 
of a party, about half a league before me, 
consisting of two English ladies, a gentle- 
man, and their guides. I had caught a 
glimpse of my fair countrywomen at the 
small inn in the morning, and heard the 
sound of their soft voices ; and, therefore, 
though the rules of travelling every where, 
but more especially in Switzerland, forbid 
either the joining or accosting others, I 
could not help casting a thought forward 
to them, as I watched their giddy course. 
The Reuss is crossed twice on those fine 
rude pass-stones, which break and give 
such beauty to the rivulet among these 



160 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

Alps. On reaching the Furca, I observed 
that their guide took them to the height on 
the left, where they seated themselves to 
refresh ; I therefore passed wide of them, 
to the right. At a certain point, command- 
ing, it is true, a most gloridus prospect, 
and showing a fine bed of glacier in the 
distance, my guide stopped me, saying, 
that this was the spot from which travellers 
generally viewed the glacier of the Rhone, 
and from whence they returned. This I 
do not believe ; for to do so would not be 
to see the glacier, and would be, moreover, 
to lose by far the most sublime feature of 
that scene of wonder. 

When I stood upon the edge of that vast 
and wide bed of eternal snow, wiped my 
hot brow beneath a scorching sun, and 
gathered the flower of the evergreen at my 
foot ; when I saw, at the bottom of the 
glacier, the young brown river issuing forth 
from cavernous mouths in a deep mass of 
snow ; and when I looked up to that ridge, 
which stretches from one dark mountain- 
peak to its dark fellow, and over which this 
sea of ice must once have rolled into its 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 161 

present bed, I was moved with wonder, as 
if I had seen a vision. The whole of that 
rifted ridge seemed but one bright wall of 
pyramid, and obelisk, and spire, builded in 
white snow by spirits, the ministers of 
Heaven ; a Barrier none but glorified bodies, 
light as the summer winds, might pass, 
where nothing polluted or defiled might 
hope to gain admittance ; a place apart 
from our world, and the portal of a better. 
As you tread upon the glacier, you re- 
mark that the snow, whose kindred peaks 
shine from above with such a dazzling 
transparent brightness, is beneath your 
feet, in many places, soiled and discoloured : 
still it is snow that fell white from Heaven, 
and shall again haste from all defilement, 
and image back the sunbeam from blue 
and clear reflecting waters. Ah ! thus we 
pray and hope that it will be with the 
human soul. No man can look upon 
these scenes, none can tread this snow, 
which here cracks to the foot, there 
glistens meltingly in the hot sunbeam, and 
is here again broken by rude chasms and 

M 



162 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

clefts, down into whose beautifully blue 
depths you look with trembling, — none 
can do this, and forget that he has with 
him a second self, invisible* spiritual, im- 
mortal. 

As I walked back by the edge of the 
glacier, I met the ladies, and the gentle- 
man who attended them, coming along 
the path towards the Grimsel. They dis- 
mounted, and went a few yards on the bed 
of the ice. After they passed on, I went 
down to the spot, that I might have the 
pleasure of seeing woman's foot-print in: 
such a scene. Ah ! what woman is to 
man ! 

I re-ascended the Furca, pausing at 
every step. What a scene it is ! From 
one of the very loftiest ridges above me 
I heard a shout and a laugh. I cannot tell 
how very wild and fearful they sounded 
in that solitude ; it was only the cry of 
some marmot hunters, whom the guide 
well knew ; yet it shook and stirred me 
strangely ; methought they were laughing 
too near Heaven. 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 163 

I descended towards the hospice with 
the sinking day ; the shadows were spread- 
ing fast and far ; the mountain-herds, and 
their rude pastors, creeping to lower 
shelter ; and, when I reached the hospice, 
the capuchin was reading the vesper-service 
to the goatherds assembled in the chapel. 
I stood uncovered and silent at the door, 
and listened to the well-known melancholy 
murmur of that service. I have seldom 
seen a people of more rude and cheerless 
aspect ; they were poorly and coarsely clad ; 
the very young among them looked not 
youthful, and the old looked not as they 
had ever known joy. I observed blear 
eyes, and blains, and sores from cold winds, 
and stones, and snow. Such are the moun- 
taineers of St. Gothard. I saw not one 
man with the light limb and the bounding 
step we so often arid so naturally associate 
with the very word mountaineer. I went 
into the friar's dwelling, and took a cup of 
wine : two young peasant girls of Ander- 
matt, relations, live with him. They formed 
quite a contrast to the population of the 

m 2 



164 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

rude hamlet, being both of them pretty, 
one remarkably so. Lest I should uninten- 
tionally raise a smile at the expence of the 
poor capuchin (and I am not fond of capu- 
chins), I think it right to add, that it was 
evident to the observing glance, their in- 
tercourse was of the most innocent nature. 
He was a man of a certain age, painfully 
plain, and of a sad, dull, unintelligent ap- 
pearance. I looked into his little cabin- 
like sleeping cell, and into his small, poor 
garden. For many months of the year the 
inhabitants of this place are snowed in : 
the two fine faces near him must then be 
felt as blessings, if it were only that they 
light up a dwelling. There is a something 
in a fine human countenance, seen daily 
about you in the common services of life, 
which does greatly gild existence. 

On my return to the inn at Hospital, I 
found my companion, the Hanoverian and 
his, who had all three been visiting the 
hospice of St. Gothard, at supper. We in- 
terchanged our accounts of what had struck 
or delighted either. I here parted with 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 165 

the gentleman who had accompanied me 
for many days. It is impossible for two men 
to travel for even so short a period to- 
gether, and to separate, without some feel- 
ing of regret, especially if they have stood 
side by side, and gazed on such objects as we 
had visited together. Our sentiments differ- 
ed on many points, as we soon discovered ; 
but I must say, that I have rarely met a 
man with whom I could so happily " agree 
to differ." I shall long recollect, with 
pleasure, my journey from Strasburg to 
the St. Gothard, and my talented and cheer- 
ful companion. 

At early dawn I was on horseback, 
ascending the St. Gothard, and, leaving 
the guide in charge of the sumpter-horse 
that carried my baggage, I rode forward 
alone. 

The ascent and passage of this moun- 
tain are inconceivably grand. The grandeur 
of which I speak is dark, desolate, terrific ; 
all is rock, granite rock, in rude and mighty 
masses, not impending or threatening, but 
lying stern and still. The hue of every 

m 3 



166 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

thing is iron ; the sight and the sound of 
water alone remind you of the mercy of that 
Being who created the awful wilderness 
around. 

I overtook a boy driving a laden mule 
alone : I talked with him awhile ; but he 
was in the habit of crossing the mountain 
thus, and partook its character, — < was grave 
and dull, as one habitually oppressed by 
solitude and silence: himself and mule 
were the only living things I passed be- 
tween the village of Hospital and the 
hospice. The sun did not shine : thin 
white vapours flitted about the mountain, 
now veiling, and now displaying to greater 
advantage some of the loftier and ruder 
points of those rocks which surround the 
wild valley of the lake, at the summit of 
the passage : now they enveloped, now 
chilled me ; now sailed slow away, and left 
me in clear and open air, a near gazer, and 
close watcher of the cloud, I shouted 
long at the hospice before I could make 
any one hear me. A few goats were stand- 
ing in, or straying about the yard, with 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 167 

udders full, as if waiting for the milking 
hour ; and, at last, a miserable-looking 
herd-boy crept shivering round the gable 
of an outhouse, and came towards me ; 
while, almost at the same moment, the 
keeper of the hospice slowly opened the 
door, reproaching me for being there be- 
fore the usual hour of the mail. The post- 
bag, it appears, was on the solitary mule I 
had passed with the boy, the courier himself 
being somewhat behind it again. So much 
for the security of the communication 
over the St. Gothard. The keeper of this 
wretched hospice was an old soldier, spoke 
French, Italian, Spanish, and was not un- 
intelligent. Such a man would hardly 
accept this post, if there was not some 
sure mode of making money, besides tend- 
ing a few goats, and selling a few glasses of 
aqua ardente. I exchanged a few words 
with him about old times, took a cup of 
warm milk, to which, after the camp fashion, 
he added a glass of Cognac, from the bottle 
reserved for first-class customers, and 
leaving here my horse to follow with the 
guide, I walked forward on foot. 

m 4 



168 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

There is yet another association con- 
nected with this cold wild scene, and it is 
one which, received into the mind as you 
stand alone, in the midst of so many rude 
yet sublime wonders, makes man start to 
think of, — war has been here, up here, in 
these high, dark solitudes. The stubborn 
Russian and the " fiery Frank" had a 
smart action here, during the campagn of 
1798, or 1799 ; and this rude place of re- 
pose for pilgrim and muleteer was taken 
and retaken, in combats of musketry and 
the bayonet. I know not how it is, or why 
I should so feel it ; but uniforms, and 
words of command, and the spitting fire of 
regular sharp-shooters, seem quite out of 
character with the scene. Man feels him- 
self a pigmy in these places : horses and 
horsemen, stretched dead on the wide 
battle-plain ; foot-soldiers lying slain on all 
the green knolls around ; and yagers skir- 
mishing with their rifles among the bushes 
and thickets, are things common and in 
keeping with fields of warfare ; but feeble 
creatures crawling about, round and among 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 169 

these mighty fragments of the day of Chaos, 
this stony girdle of our world, and with 
distant and pitiful shots levelling their fel- 
lows, and bodies lying small near huge 
masses of dark stone ! — it sounds too dar- 
ing, and human combatants, with all their 
swelling, appear too little in such places, — 
I mean numbered and regimented com- 
batants, and hired legions. For the soli- 
tary struggle of man and some one deadly 
assailant, for such peril as knight or pil- 
grim, as female innocent, or as hunted 
martyr might encounter, the scene is fitted 
by that very sublimity which makes the 
regular operations of modern warfare sink 
into a tame insignificance in such a theatre. 

The circumstance of St. Gothard being, 
to this day, impassable for carriages, leaves 
it in possession of all that character of ro- 
mance which the musing mind may have 
been wont, from early age, to attach to a 
passage of the Alps. 

As soon as you begin to descend, all that 
was naked and stony disappears ; it is left 
behind ; beautiful prospects open on you ; 



170 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

the vale, into which you are moving down, 
is green ; there are villages and foliage ; 
trees climb all the hills, and, on the very 
summits, screens and patches of black fir 
lie disposed in the most picturesque forms, 
and contrast protectingly with the sheltered 
pastures beneath them. The sun broke out, 
and lighted all things. " Buon giorno" 
said a man coming up with the broad hat, 
the round blue jacket, the blue breeches, 
the white stockings, and the large shoe- 
buckles of the Italian peasant. You are 
in Italy, the very sound of the Tessino 
would tell you so, it hurries so gladly on, 
leaps so rejoicingly from rock to rock, and 
whitens, and foams, and sparkles so at its 
many beautiful falls. 

The small inn at Airolo is kept by a 
most civil landlord : the chamber where I 
washed, the beds, the furniture, all Italian 
in fashion; while the countenances of two 
females of his family more particularly 
and more pleasingly announce Italia, the 
sunny and the soft, the land of warm tints 
and fine features. I travelled from hence, 



GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 171 

by what is called the post, to Bellinzone. 
The vehicle is indescribable; it must have 
stood for upwards of a century, undisturbed, 
in some old remise, and have been lately 
purchased by our speculating host for a 
song, drawn forth and advanced or de- 
graded to the service of carrying a mail 
and passengers. The old faded velveteen 
linings, the heavy panels, the clumsy 
springs, were of a date now forgotten. The 
driver, indeed, was in keeping with it ; he 
was a peasant in old peasant garb, and the 
buckles must have been made, I should 
think, about the time when the carriage 
was built. 

The whole road from Airolo to Bellin- 
zone is delight, delight : at every turn some 
new romantic feature, or some of a softer 
loveliness. Fontana, Faido, and Giornorco, 
are passed in succession. You begin with 
pasturage. You pass down into gardens of 
fruit, orchards, and vineyards, and on to 
green fields, and wider meads : beauty and 
brightness keep the traveller's heart glad, 
and every thing looks light and cheerful. 



172 GERMAN SWITZERLAND. 

I had no companion but my driver, but he 
was lively and companionable : we changed 
drivers at Faido. The second was a little 
merry fellow, who sung, or rather hummed 
all the way admirably well, giving every 
bar and turn. I looked, I suppose, as I 
felt, contented. " Vi piace t" said the 
little man, and then on he went again like 
a bird. " That is a Spanish air," I said ; 
" where did you get it ?" — " Non so." 
" Give it again." — " Per ubbidir la" and 
he sung to me to my heart's ease. At last, 
when arrived at the end of his stage, he 
jumped off his seat, took a young infant 
from the arms of a fine young woman, with 
a pretty and smiling face, and was so fully 
occupied in kissing and playing with it, 
that, if I had not called him, he would have 
suffered the relay to drive on without even 
asking for his buona mano. He told me, 
cheerfully, as I tipped him, that he was a 
young married man, and this his first child ; 
wished me a happy journey ; and there, as 
I looked back, 1 saw him stand at his cot- 
tage-door, fondling his young child, and 



LUGANO. 173 

chatting with its pretty mother. Well, 
there certainly is a great deal of happiness 
in the world, that tyranny and misgovern- 
ment, by God's blessing, never reach : here, 
how r ever, in these peaceable times, they 
boast of freedom ; for this is a canton of 
Switzerland. The view of Bellinzone, with 
the three castellated hills that rise above 
the city, from whence walls descend to her 
three gates, giving her the power of shut- 
ting and guarding the valley on every side, 
is very noble and striking. 

According to my plan, I went forward to 
Lugano. I got a room at the albergo, com- 
manding so delightful a prospect, I was so 
captivated with the small lake, and even in the 
town itself the aspectof somany things struck 
and pleased me, that I lingered there three 
days. The inhabitants of Lugano are said 
to be industrious, and the silk of this place 
is in high repute. But, in truth, the people 
do not look very industrious, and as almost 
all trades ply their work either in the open 
air or in such open shops as the passing eye 
may gaze in upon, I should call them indo- 



174 LUGANO, 

lent. Although a small town, I never saw any 
other (save Naples) where they seem so 
studiously to spare themselves the trouble 
of keeping house, and preparing food in 
their families. The town is full of cooks' 
shops, whence all are content to be sup- 
plied : a way of life that begets a disregard 
of comfort, but, at the same time, gives a 
kind of cheerful carelessness. To the pass- 
ing observer, society, in this state, (how- 
ever he may regret that things are so,) gives 
a certain pleasure ; for he sees it well, and 
near, and fully. If we stand for hours near 
a glass bee-hive, with a pleased interest 
and lively curiosity, how much higher the 
gratification, in despite of the pain it brings 
with it, to stand among our fellow-men, 
our proper study, and to see how they live, 
and move, and have their being. Lugano 
is Swiss, and free by its constitution ; but 
Lugano is enslaved by habits, by climate 
and beauty, oil and wine, and, above 
all, by the spirit of her religion. The 
place is overstocked with convents and 
churches,— and the tinkle of the small bell 



LUGANO. 1 75 

is perpetual. The view over the lake, from 
the terrace before the mother-church, is 
enchanting ; and for views, generally, turn 
where you will at Lugano, they are lovely. 
The hours I passed upon the lake were 
such as on a lake gliding in a boat may be 
passed in any land, in summer seasons, 
where lakes are to be found. But, as 
Lugano is not much visited, I name it, as- 
suring any, who may follow in my track, 
that the form and features of it, and its 
romantic shores, merit a wider fame than 
the vicinity of the larger lakes, and the re- 
ports of travellers have allowed to it. I 
took boat on the day of my departure to 
the small village of Porlezza, at the head 
of the lake ; hence I crossed to that of 
Como on foot. In the small cottage albergo 
of Porlezza, where I refreshed before I 
started, they gave me bread whiter than 
milk, excellent wine, and abundance of 
luscious figs and grapes : of these I made 
the boatmen partake, as also a ragged boy 
that had worked his short passage over at 
an oar. In a country where nature boun- 
tifully provides such luxuries, and where 



176 como. 

the poor, amid their rags and poverty, do 
yet so often partake of them, it is sur- 
prising to see, at the chance-occasion, the 
easy courtesy of their manner with those to 
whom, at other times, they are so slavishly 
deferential. They take, and eat thankfully 
and cheerfully, and seem to feel a sort of 
pride that the traveller should so like and 
praise the produce of their country. It is 
about six miles from Porlezza to Cade- 
nobbio : a guide carried my valise. 

The elevated vale, through which the 
road lies, is beautiful. When the traveller 
arrives by the winding footpath, along 
which he is conducted to the height above 
Cadenobbio,and looks down upon the bosom 
of the lake of Como, he will assuredly send 
forward his guide, and throw himself on the 
ground, and long refuse to be hurried, even 
by himself, from such a feast of the soul ! 
The glorious river-like form of this lake ; 
the mountain shores towards the head, 
round which it sweeps, as a broad majestic 
river would; the towns, the villages, the 
little bays and inlets on its smiling shores ; 
the beautiful division of its two arms im- 



como. 177 

mediately beneath you ; the glittering water, 
and the white sails that play upon it, fill 
full the gaze, and make the heart heave 
quick. When I descended, I saw the land- 
lord of the inn coming to meet me. He 
talked English a little, and I found had 
begun life as one of those itinerant venders 
of prints, maps, weather and spy glasses ; 
who shiver through a few English winters 
for the sake of a purse, that may enable 
them to sit down under the shadow of their 
own vines, in this delightful region for the 
rest of life. There was little romantic 
in the appearance, or manner, or talk of 
my good host, but it was evident that his 
local attachments were strong, and the 
beauties of his native country dear in his 
estimation. I found his house clean, his 
fare good, and his charges reasonable ; and 
had all three been the reverse, the pros- 
pect from my chamber-window would have 
abundantly consoled me. 

I took a boat in the morning to Corao, 
visiting the show villas, and loitering for 
some time in the cool and shady villa 

N 



178 como. 

Pliniana, concerning which so much has 
been written. 

On my arrival at Como I immediately 
took a charabanc, and crossed by a most 
romantic and beautiful road to Lecco, a 
small town, situated at the head of the se- 
cond branch of the lake. The following 
day was the market at Lecco, and the place 
was filled with peasant figures of the true 
Italian stamp, affording numberless studies 
to the painter. From hence I took a car- 
riage to Bergamo, a large and busy city. 
The great fair was just over; and from my 
own observation, and the enquiries I made, 
I should think a person desirous of studying 
Italian character would do well to make 
a point of visiting Bergamo during the fair. 
This lasts for three weeks, is always very 
numerously attended, and exhibits a great 
variety of character among the peasants of 
different provinces who frequent it, — pea- 
sants who preserve unalterably the dress 
and the customs of their fathers. Moreover, 
Bergamo is the true birth-place of Har- 
lequin. We have all, I suppose, liked 



BERGAMO. 179 

Harlequin in our day, have most of us 
laughed ourselves into innocent merriment 
at Mother Goose, and still remember with 
wonder that rolling head of Bologna's which 
scarce seemed a part of the man, and Gri- 
maldi, of memory immortal in the annals of 
drollery. I saw here, in Bergamo, a man, 
a Falstaff, or rather, not the fat man of a 
a play, but of a pantomime. He was the 
keeper (as should be) of a cook's shop. 
His paunch, literally, appeared to move 
before him. The fall from his breast to his 
stomach was so made that you might have 
opened and spread a huge tavern ledger 
upon it, and there it would have lain as 
safe bedded as on a church eagle ; — his 
face shone, and his jowls were dewlaps ; — 
a white nightcap and apron he wore, and 
I should have deemed him a mask dressed 
for a harlequinade, if I had not stood for a 
minute of wonder close to him. I have 
observed of Italy, that land of handsome 
features, that her ugly, deformed, or cor- 
pulent men are monstrosities. What noses 
you sometimes meet with in Italy, — like 
the nodes of a cork-tree in shape, and 

n 2 



180 BRESCIA. 

stained with all hues of purple and the mul- 
berry ! 

I went to Brescia the following morning 
in company with an Italian priest, a man of 
wood. The road lies through a rich and 
fertile vale. Brescia is a city of some in- 
terest to the passing gazer. The walk 
round the walls is pleasant, and the pros- 
pects from them on all sides fair, on that 
of the Alps fine. The view from the castle 
over the glorious plain of Lombardy is one 
to seat yourself on the broken wall and 
thoroughly enjoy. The plain is wooded as 
though it were a forest, and yet you know 
it to be a watered garden. I saw a party of 
young men here near the ramparts playing 
at the ballone, and all the slope above them 
was covered with spectators, and crowned 
with idle groups of Austrian soldiers. The 
players wore frilled shirts of the finest tex- 
ture, ruffles also, and coloured ribands dis- 
posed ornamentally on their sleeves and at 
the drawer-knees. The whole scene was a 
picture, and greatly enlivened by the in- 
terest which the spectators take in it : they 
shout, and laugh, and exult, as skill or 



LAKE OF GARDA. 181 

awkwardness affect them. It is painful to 
an Englishman to contemplate the groups 
of Italian gentlemen who lounge away long 
hours upon the chairs under the awnings of 
the many cafes close to the theatre. They 
sip ices, they hum, they babble quick about 
play or small news ; they are well enough 
dressed, well enough looking ; but their very 
air tells you plainly that the higher in- 
terests of life neither attract or stir them : 
they are content to exist, to be, and to be 
— nothing. 

I took a carriage to a small town on the 
lake of Garda, and here I hired a boat to 
Riva. The boatman asked me something 
enormous. I said, " My dear fellow, I have 
not time at present to go through the re- 
gular comedy of bargain-making, therefore 
here is what I will give you," naming less 
than half their demand. The men looked 
surprised, now at me now at each other, 
but closed with my offer. I went to a cafe 
to take a cup of coffee while they were get- 
ting ready ; a respectable looking sergeant 
of gens-d'armerie came in, and bowing to 
me, said that I had made a fair bargain, and 

n 3 



182 LAKE OF GARDA. 

he never saw the trouble so usual in making 
one so easily got rid of. He related the 
circumstances to those in the cafe, who 
laughed heartily at the expression about the 
comedy, and gave me credit for thoroughly 
understanding this class of their country- 
men. The boatmen proved hard-working, 
honest, cheerful fellows, and kissed my 
hand cordially at parting, because I threw 
in a trifle more for a long laborious row 
after the wind fell. I gave a poor peasant 
woman of Roveredo a passage, and for a 
small bit of silver got white bread and fruit 
enough for the whole party. The basket of 
fruit was quite a picture, as we all agreed. 
These poor Italians have a quick perception 
of beauty ; a quality of the mind which cer- 
tainly gives great delight to the possessor, 
but which, like all earthly blessings, is coun- 
terbalanced by strange heart-achings, and 
a very painful corrosive canker in moments 
of privation, disappointment, and blank 
melancholy. 

The sail up this lake into the very bosom 
of the mountains is at once lovely and 
grand. The chamber of the inn at Riva 



iuva. 183 

looks out upon the lake, and commands a 
noble view of the magnificent and rocky 
heights which rise from its borders. 

About three years ago a huge fragment of 
the mountain just above Riva fell, destroy- 
ing, and literally sweeping into the lake, 
two cottages. The warning, though but 
momentary, was yet sufficient to preserve 
the inhabitants, who fled out naked in the 
night, and saved their lives : — such price is 
sometimes, and not unfrequently, paid for 
dwelling amid the romantic scenery of the 
Alps. A bill at these inns is often diverting, 
when they charge the articles separately, as 
they did to me here. A bottle of fine wine, 
really good and well flavoured, was put 
down about sixpence ; a tough, uneatable 
morsel of arrosto about two shillings : such 
proportion bears the luxury to the neces- 
sary in their estimation. I was too de- 
lighted with the room, the scene, and the 
wine, to object to paying eight times the 
value of the scrap of burnt veal they styled 
arrosto. 

The scenery between Riva and Roveredo 
is exceedingly wild, and the road is very 

n 4 



184 KOVEREDO. 

lonely. Roveredo is rather a busy-looking 
place, and their principal trade is in silk. 
All this country brings back to the mind 
the early and most honourable triumphs of 
Bonaparte: here he laid the foundation of 
his fame and fortune. I remember that 
the first picture I ever saw of Napoleon 
represented him in a general's uniform, at 
full length, with the subscription : 

Cui laurus eternos honores 
Italico peperit triumpho, 

A truth which few, even of his enemies, 
have disputed, if the reference of it be 
limited to his exploits as a general. The 
violence done to property in that war must 
not all be chargeable to his memory, though, 
as he was the commander of an army, which 
he was left by the jealousy of the French 
government to clothe, pay, and feed as he 
could, of course the sufferers affixed their 
curse on him. It is related that as Bo- 
naparte was one evening conversing cour- 
teously with an Italian lady, she took some 
flower or trifle from his hand playfully: 
" Gli Italiani" said the General, smiling, 



TRENT. 185 

" sono tutti Ladroni" — " Non tutti, mas 
buona parte" was her ready and severe 
retort. Nevertheless, in the north of Italy, 
his name is often accompanied by a bene- 
diction. It has been said of him, " There was 
greatness in the General, greatness in the 
Consul: the Emperor was only mighty." 

The bronze medallion of him as First 
Consul, struck only for private distribution 
after the battle of Marengo, as a work 
of art, and as a beautiful expressive head, 
exceeds any modern medallion that I ever 
beheld. 

The route from Roveredo to Trent is 
narrowly walled in, and is hot, dusty, and 
very provoking ; for you can see nothing, 
although you feel that if the walls were 
beat down, there would be continuous 
prospects of beauty. 

Trent is very prettily situated : it is a 
city of the Tyrol, but I like not to call it 
by that nobler name : it is Italian, true 
Italian ; moreover, was the seat of the 
famous Council that puzzled and plagued 
the world for so many years. 



186 TRENT. 

There is a picture of this assembly in 
the church where the Council was held, 
on a small scale, and faded ; but you may 
trace all the costumes distinctly enough — 
cardinals, bishops, abbots, monks, and 
doctors, seated in dull array. How these 
four or five hundred luxurious gentlemen 
were fed, was an idle fancy or speculation 
that I could not get out of my silly head, 
all the time of my stay in this old city. 
What a market it must have had ! what 
cooks ! what convoys of sleek mules, laden 
with luxuries ! and how, in their distant 
and regretted residences, all the old house- 
keepers of these perplexed and provoked 
absentees must have busied themselves in 
the preparations of savouries and potted 
meats, dried fruits, and delicate conserves, 
and in the regular and never-failing dis- 
patch of supplies from the well-stocked 
cellars. Trent is, in itself, an abominably 
stupid place ; but Fancy, reverting to the 
period of which I speak, soon peoples it 
with portraits of a vast and amusing va- 
riety. 



TRENT. 1 87 

Not a chamber of the hotel where I 
lodged but some crowned head, or prin- 
cess, had slept in it : their arms, and the 
dates of their visits, were over the doors. 
If, therefore, the traveller feels discontent 
w r ith room or bed, he has the consolation 
of knowing that the lords of palaces fared 
no better at Trent, in this respect, than 
himself. 

As I left very early in the morning for 
Bautzen, my bill was brought, and, I con- 
jecture, prepared by the waiter. Every 
thing was charged double : this I observed, 
to the vexation, no doubt, but certainly 
not to the confusion, of the man ; for he 
received the half with the most spaniel- 
like demeanour, just like the celebrated 
black-leg who scored with notched chalk ; 
and, on being told by his pigeon, of whom 
he had, doubtless, won thousands, " Why, 
you have just marked two instead of one," 
replied, " Have I ? then I will rub one 
out again." My companion in the carriage 
to Bautzen was a priest of the country, 
altogether an Italian, in look, manner, and 
language — nothing of the Tyrolese about 



188 THE TYROL. 

him. The road is beautiful and romantic; 
the villages which you pass on the early 
part of the route bear marks of frequent 
suffering and devastation ; and the effects 
of the memorable campaigns of 1796, 1797, 
are distinctly visible to this day. It is not 
until he approaches Bautzen that I consider 
the traveller fairly in the Tyrol. This city 
is situated on the rapid Eisach, and moun- 
tains of great majesty environ it. Here 
German is the language of the people ; 
German is their aspect : here the varieties 
of costume, which have, for centuries, 
marked and distinguished the inhabitants 
of the different valleys in this famous 
country, first press upon his attention. 
Some of the women here wear a head-dress 
certainly not very becoming. It is a coni- 
cal cap of very fine dressed wool, either 
of a white or black colour : it looks like 
the softest fur or down, is expensive, and 
an article they take great pride in ; but to 
the travelled eye it has a very strange ap- 
pearance, and seems a more fitting head- 
gear for some Tartar chief, galloping on his 
native steppes, than for the peasant woman 



THE TYROL. 189 

of these mountain vales. Others, how- 
ever, of the women wear a black hat, small 
and round, the crown high, and nearly 
conical, and their long hair is rolled up 
behind into a glossy knot, and just shown 
under it. Others wear broad green hats, 
either of beaver, or covered with green 
silk, and bands of broad riband, of the 
like colour, tasselled or fringed with gilt 
thread. Some plait their hair in two long 
braids, others bind it about the head. 
Their corsets, their aprons, their petti- 
coats, their stockings, are of various colours, 
rustic and coarse, but producing an effect 
most pleasing and picturesque. The men 
are magnificent alike in costume and ap- 
pearance : they are remarkable for their 
fine make, and the open fearless expression 
of their countenances. They wear hats, 
some broad, some narrow, some of green 
beaver, some of black, with green ribands, 
or bands of black velvet, and jackets of 
brown, green, or black, worked with lace, 
and adorned, at the sleeve and waist, by 
frogs of red or coloured cloth. Their waist- 
coats are commonly red, and all the Ty- 



190 THE TYItOL. 

rolese wear very broad green braces out- 
side the waistcoat, as also broad belts of 
black leather round the middle, on which 
are usually worked the initial letters of the 
owner's name. Many of them show the 
knee bare, wearing only a half-stocking 
from the calf of the leg to the small, and 
put a light shoe, with a long quarter, on 
the naked foot. 

I met groups of these noble-looking 
peasants on the walks and in the streets, 
and I saw a large assembly of them in the 
cathedral. I went into a burial-ground 
adjoining, where many of both sexes were 
scattered among the graves, kneeling and 
praying, some evidently with a very deep 
and devout abstraction of manner. Near 
each monumental cross is a little vessel of 
holy water, as in Switzerland : there was 
also a large bonehouse, with skulls placed 
in the manner before described, and la- 
belled. I observed a young female pray- 
ing sadly before it. All the persons in the 
ground were bare-headed ; all was solemn 
and silent ; and when I looked up and be- 
yond the narrow bounds of this cemetery, 



THE TYROL. 191 

my lifted eye encountered, on every side, 
mountains in their brown repose. 

I passed the evening at the table d'hote. 
We were waited on at table by maid- 
servants ; but Bautzen being a considerable 
town, and the inn a large one, the traveller 
does not yet see the true kellerin of the 
Tyrol. The table was full : opposite me 
sat a tall, well-dressed man, looking rather 
genteel than gentleman-like, whom, from his 
conversation (for he was in plain clothes), 
I soon discovered to be an officer in the 
Austrian army : he was a native of Trieste. 
He afforded me some amusement, by say- 
ing that he greatly desired a war with 
England, as it would give him pleasure 
to fight against the English nation, they 
were so proud. I immediately asked him 
where he had formed that opinion of them, 
and what he knew of them ? He said that 
he had been embarked, on one occasion, 
with some troops, on board an English 
line-of-battle ship, in the Adriatic, and 
complained sadly of his treatment. By a 
little cross-examination, I found that he 
had been a young lieutenant at the time, 



192 THE TYROL. 

and thrown principally among the midship- 
men ; that he was sea-sick and wretched, 
and, of course, easily and often irritated. 
I told him, that he must not exactly judge 
of English men from English boys, or of 
England from a vessel's crew ; that our 
youth went to sea at a very early age, and 
were early taught to hold the skill and 
prowess of all enemies inferior to their own ; 
that their rude and manly education on a 
boisterous element, and this ever-present 
persuasion, begat in them that spirit of en- 
terprise and daring, which had obtained for 
our navy the renown it long had, and, I 
hoped and believed, long would enjoy ; that 
I should be sorry to see them alter, but 
that he would find the manners of our 
country, and even of our camps, somewhat 
different ; that if Fate ever should oppose 
him to British soldiers, he would not be 
disappointed of adversaries, alike worthy 
and proud to claim kindred with British 
sailors ; and that as I concluded the ob- 
ject of his desire was the natural and noble 
ambition to encounter gallant enemies, the 
day might yet come, and the wish he had 



THE TYROL. 193 

here expressed be remembered. I shall 
never forget the smile that passed across 
the broad and bronzed face of a stout Ba- 
varian officer, or the gratified look he gave 
me, and all that it seemed to express. This 
man looked worthy to head a squadron of 
heavy horse, and such a one as would not 
turn back in the melee. It would not have 
done in that place to have touched on the 
relations in which Bavaria had stood to 
France ; but I doubt not this Bavarian had 
served with the French army, and had, per- 
haps, been opposed, at some period of the 
long war, to the British. The Austrian, 
who felt that he had volunteered playing 
" bavard" looked silly, and acknowledging 
that he was not altogether in a state to 
form a correct judgment of any thing while 
at sea, sunk into silence, and soon became 
as civil as he had shown inclination to be 
rude. 

I journeyed from Bautzen to Brixen, in 
company with a Bavarian merchant, and 
his son, a fine school-boy. The road has 
all those features of romantic beauty which 
the traveller expects to find, and cannot 

o 



194 THE TYROL. 

describe. At a cottage inn on a hill, about 
midway, we stopped for a quarter of an 
hour. There, seated at a table before the 
door, we took wine and fruit, and the eye 
wandered over scenery such as the soul 
loves. A dusty wayfaring man sat down by 
our side, and took a tankard of beer. The 
tankard was of fine, clear, thick, heavy glass, 
with a bright metal top. Throughout Ger- 
many in general, especially in Austria, they 
have abundance of excellent glass, and the 
luxury of fine large well-shaped tumblers 
and wine-glasses is common. 

Brixen is a city beautifully situated, 
among mountains, at the junction of the 
rivers Rienz and Eisach. It has a cathe- 
dral, a palace, and many good houses : the 
style and fronts are Italian. The inn was 
not very comfortable, and exceedingly 
crowded. I met a German gentleman at 
supper, who had just returned from a 
ramble in the lateral vallies of the Tyrol. 
He was full of delight, had been present at 
some of their fairs and festivities, had been 
welcomed and made at home by them, and 
was enthusiastic in his praises of them. I 



THE TYROL. 195 

never met a foreigner who spoke English 
with such a happy fluency, or such a tho- 
rough understanding of our tongue. He 
spoke of acquaintances at Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, one of whom was personally known 
to me, and the name of another most fa- 
miliar, as an accomplished scholar. He 
appeared to have seen every thing in Lon- 
don that traveller could see, and, with the 
strong and permitted curiosity of an active 
mind, had not omitted to dive into the cel- 
lars of St. Giles's, or to visit the booths of 
St. Bartholomew. He told me that these 
lateral vallies could not be visited without 
a thorough knowledge, not merely of com- 
mon German, but of those familiar phrases, 
and that low language, of cheerful festivity, 
which these liveliest of German peasants 
take delight in. He pressed me to accom- 
pany him to Munich, but I had previously 
decided not to enter Bavaria farther than 
was necessary for traversing a part of that 
country on my road from Inspruck to 
Vienna. 

When I awoke in the morning I found 
the large inn deserted, and myself left to 

o 2 



196 THE TYROL. 

dress, and walk about the long old room 
adjoining my bed-chamber in stillness and 
alone. This room was hung with old paint- 
ings, none good, but none without interest. 
The old German painters seem to me to 
have been fond of such subjects as admitted 
the introduction of thrones and gorgeous 
dresses, cloths of gold, brocades, jewelled 
turbans, and costly caparisons, with rich 
embossings. When such things hang faded 
on a wall before you, as Queen Esther be- 
fore Ahasuerus, as Belshazzar at his Feast, 
Naaman in his Chariot, and such like sub- 
jects, you cannot choose but think. 

After breakfast I procured an old dusty 
caleche, with a capital horse and a rustic 
driver, to Stertzingen. Beautiful is the 
drive, and the small town of Stertzingen, 
for cleanliness and brightness, and an aspect 
all its own, delights but defies description. 
Shame to me that I have lost the note with 
the name of its none-such inn. Though I 
am never likely to forget the house, yet 
cannot I tell any one who may ramble after 
me whether it be a Rose, or a Crown, or a 
Golden Lion that hangs dangling before it. 



THE TYROL. 197 

Here was an elderly landlady, a pattern of 
kind hospitality and motherly propriety, 
two fair daughters, clean and modest, and 
a stout and trusty kellerin, with black petti- 
coat of ample folds, and keys enough, in 
number and size, for the warder of a castle. 
Her guardianship, however, is not over 
turrets and dungeons, but over closets and 
cellars, wines and meats, fruits and pre- 
serves, and all household comforts. There 
is no feature about the inns of the Tyrol 
more remarkable than the kellerin : she is 
a personage of the first importance ; she 
makes all charges, and receives all pay- 
ments ; for which purpose she wears a 
large leathern pocket, or purse, which, like 
the tradesman's till, is emptied each even- 
ing. She is intrusted with all the house- 
hold stores; she brings each traveller his 
meal, and blesses it ; she brings him his 
wine-cup, and it is yet the custom, with all 
old Tyrolers, that she should, at least, put 
her lips to it. She is always addressed with 
kindness ; " Mein kind" " My child," is 
the common phrase ; and it is varied, in 
warmth and tenderness, according to ac- 

o 3 



198 THE TYROL. 

cidental circumstances. It is sometimes 
endearing, as " Mem schones kind"- " My 
pretty child ;" " Mem herz^ " My heart ; " 
" Mein schatz" " My treasure." In gene- 
ral, however, although I have seen some of 
great beauty, the kellerin is a stout, coarse, 
active woman, with a frank readiness of 
service in her manner, and a plain pride of 
station, — the pride of being trust-worthy. 

It may be supposed that these phrases 
are not always used, without some light- 
ness, by youthful travellers ; yet is there a 
manner of employing them without any 
impropriety ; and the very utterance is a 
pleasure, they beget so much kindliness 
and good humour. 

I was shown into a room that would have 
satisfied the cleanliest of Quakers ; and the 
first objects my eyes rested on were some 
English prints, not very common ones, — 
a series, with the pictured and affecting 
story of Lady Jane Grey, and one other, 
the Tomb of fair Fidele, and, beneath, the 
lines, 

" To fair Fidele's grassy tomb," &c. &c. 



THE TYROL. 199 

Now, certainly, we do not travel abroad to 
see English prints, yet did I heartily bless 
the chance that brought them there, was 
happy in their sweet company, and con- 
fident that many a solitary English tra- 
veller had felt the like throb of a thankful 
heart, as he sat down in this little chamber, 
the welcomed tenant of a day. There was 
a little garden and flowers in it, before the 
window. It was a place to do nothing quick 
in ; the washing, the dressing, the repast, 
all slowly lingered over, and the eyes ever 
straying to the sweet figure and face of 
Lady Jane Grey, and then on to " Fair 
Fidele's grassy tomb," the lip and voice 
each time engaged, just as we hum over and 
over the bars of some old and well-loved 
air. 

In the evening, as I sat thinking after 
supper, I heard voices as in prayer ; and, 
looking out of my chamber into the large 
irregular-shaped hall, I saw a party of pea- 
sants assembled on their knees, before a 
large wooden crucifix, and performing their 
evening devotions. In the Tyrol, if the 
house is considered a good one, and the 

o 4 



200 THE TYROL. 

people worthy and devout, the peasants 
and muleteers, who lodge in the outhouses 
and stables, do always use the hall, or 
guest-chamber, as a chapel, imagining that 
they confer and receive a blessing by so 
doing. 

Stertzingen was the scene of one of the 
greatest triumphs of the Tyrolese over 
their invaders, in 1809. In the immediate 
neighbourhood of the town there is a 
marshy flat, on the hills near which they 
most judiciously contrived an ambuscade 
for the Bavarian cavalry, and completely 
defeated them. There is so much of the 
pride and pomp of a regular army about a 
body of well-mounted and well-appointed 
horse, that the picture of such a descrip- 
tion of force defeated, destroyed, or led 
captive by mountain-peasants, in the rude 
and picturesque garb in which they toil 
and hunt, does awaken in the fancy a very 
lively delight, and give an honest pleasure 
to the heart ; as honest, at least, as we may 
ever be permitted to take in warfare. It 
was a bright and memorable feature in 
the rising of the Tyrolese, that no acts of 



THE TYROL. 201 

wanton or capricious cruelty, no acts of 
savage or vindictive barbarity, stained the 
character of their cause. The only per- 
sons who were roughly or severely treated 
were such of their own countrymen as they 
suspected of treachery 5 but, towards the 
French and Bavarians, especially the latter, 
when defeated and captured, no violence 
was shown beyond that necessary to secure 
them as prisoners. How glorious do things 
like these tell ! — A man for a leader, of 
whom a nation should say, " The word of 
Hofer is enough for us ;" " What Hofer 
says, we will believe y " What Hofer bids, 
we will do ;" and this a lowly man, honest, 
brave, compassionate, and devout. There 
is scarce an instance in history of a man 
with so little ability effecting so much by 
the mere weight of personal character. The 
general and the politician closeted in 
Vienna made this noble peasant their tool ; 
and, in fact, it was in all the trouble 
and intrigue at the close that this plain, 
unsuspecting, credulous, and faithful man 
was shipwrecked ; and (eternal disgrace to 
the French !) was taken, tried by a military 



202 THE TYROL. 

commission, found guilty of being bold, 
and good, and true, and put to death. Such 
deaths, indeed, are hallowed, yet are they 
heart-breaking to hear of and think about. 
The print of Andrea Hofer is, of course, 
every where : he is represented in a brown 
jacket, red waistcoat, broad green braces, 
and the letters A. H., the simple distinction 
on his body- belt, when he sold and bought 
cattle in the fairs, figure there, to tell the 
name, and, in the name, the rank of that 
most glorious, because most merciful, of 
patriot leaders, who thus walked among his 
fellow-countrymen, as a simple one of 
them, at the time that he commanded, 
and ostensibly directed, all the energies of 
Tyrol against the Bavarian and the French 
armies. 

If any of my young readers should desire 
to peruse an animated and beautiful sketch 
of this mountain-war, let them turn to the 
■" Edinburgh Historical Annual Register" 
for 1809 or 1810. I have not seen the 
chapter that treats of it for sixteen years. I 
read it in Portugal, but the glow of it does 
in remembrance warm me still. 



THE TYROL. 203 

The road between Stertzingen and Ins- 
pruck traverses for many miles the lofty 
Brenner. Near the summit is a small house 
of call ; and here I saw a perfect picture of 
the mountain kellerin, with black and 
glossy hair, a brown cheek, a bright eye, 
and teeth of a dazzling whiteness. At Stei- 
nach, where I dined, was another of coarse 
aspect, but kind and gentle in her service. 
These women, to the eye of any traveller 
who has a something of the painter's per- 
ceptions and of the poet's feelings, form a 
very interesting feature, and they might be 
woven into the tale of the novelist with 
strong effect. 

Inspruck, the capital of the Tyrol, lies in 
a valley watered by the Inn, and imme- 
diately at the foot of a mountain ridge 
which rises above it like a mighty wall in 
barren and precipitous magnificence. You 
pass the Schonberg, and descend to it by a 
winding road that presents, at every turn, 
a prospect of some striking and picturesque 
beauty. I arrived late in the evening, 
and was put into a large chamber, where 
by portraits, arms, inscriptions, &c, I found 



204 THE TYROL. 

many crowned heads and noble persons had 
at various times been lodged, I requested 
and obtained with difficulty on the morrow 
a smaller one. The inn-keeper here, who 
is a jolly old man, and was once courier to 
the Duke of Cumberland, is fond of making 
kings of such travelling Englishmen as are 
gratified by the folly, while for the amuse- 
ment of his German guests he can sing, 
with the most comic effect, 

" The clucks and the geese they do swim over." 

I encored him in it, and wished Mat- 
thews at table to fix the man and his man- 
ner for wider amusement. I was made ex- 
ceedingly comfortable at this hotel, and 
dined every day during my stay with a 
small party of superior officers and private 
gentlemen, whose manners and conversation 
were most pleasing, and where, contrary to 
the usual custom, the host did not appear at 
table. It was at a supper the night before 
I went away that I heard the old man sing, 
and that he showed me all the medals of 
Hofer. 



THE TYROL. 205 

The first thing which I visited in Ins- 
pruck, and the object which I could not 
tire of gazing on after repeated visits, is the 
grand cenotaph in the church of the Fran- 
ciscans, to the memory of Maximilian the 
Emperor. 

The mausoleum itself would require, if I 
attempted it at all, a very minute descrip- 
tion, and of a nature that would be tedious 
to the reader, without conveying the gene- 
ral effect to his mind. It is raised on three 
steps of veined marble, on the highest of 
which there is a finely executed bordering 
in bronze of arms and trophies. In bronze, 
Maximilian, robed as an emperor, kneels 
suppliant on his tomb; on the sides, in 
tablets of white Carrara marble, each of 
which is two feet wide by one and a half in 
height, are represented, in bas relief, the 
most remarkable actions of his life. The 
sculpture is exquisite, and all the scenes 
are represented with a fidelity at once mi- 
nute and animated. But the charm and the 
ma£*ic of this monument arise from the re- 
markable circumstance of its being sur- 
rounded by a stern and silent company of 



206 THE TYROL. 

colossal statutes* in bronze. The figures are 
male and female, persons of renown and 
royal birth : many of the house of Austria 
and in the ancestral line of Maximilian, and 
others, to the stranger's eye, of a deeper 
and more attaching interest. There is 
" Gottfried von Bouillon, Konig v. Irusalem" 
in armour, with the cross on his breast- 
plate, and the crown of thorns upon his cap 
of steel. There is Theodoric, king of the 
Goths: Clovis of France: Philip the Good, 
and Charles the Bold ; and it is with a 
start of delight that the Englishman reads 
on the pedestal of that one whose port and 
bearing are allowedly the most knightly 
and the most royal, — 

ARTUR, KONIG 
V. ENGLAND. 

You ask not why he is here ; — you gaze 
upon his coronetted helm with the worship 
of one who had lived his subject ; you 



That is, somewhat larger than life. 



THE TYROL. 207 

mount the pedestal and raise his barred 
vizor, and look upon the still features ; you 
grasp his gauntletted hand, and touch his 
sword, — 

(The " massy blade 
Of magic temper'd metal made,") 

with a fancy that you are daring too far, 
and down again in reverence to the paved 
aisle. 

I lingered among these forms at a se- 
cond visit till it was dusk. Albrechts and 
Rodolphs were frowning on me in fearful 
armour. Queens and princesses standing 
solemn in large draperies of bronze, and I 
happily pacing or pausing among them with 
a created and indulged terror ; and ever as 
I came near " Artur, Konig von England" 
the harp of Warton sounded in my ear, as 
it was wont to do, when as a boy it was my 
pastime to recite his fine " Ode on the 
Grave of King Arthur." 

In this same church lie the remains of 
Hofer under a plain stone, simply inscribed 
with his name. They were disinterred and 



208 THE TYROL. 

brought from Mantua by order of the Em- 
peror of Austria, that they might be ho- 
noured with a public funeral in the capital 
of Tyrol. They were received by the 
faithful Tyrolese with transport, and fol- 
lowed to the place of their present rest by 
the public authorities, the military, and 
crowds of the peasantry, who flocked down 
from all their mountains to grace the glo- 
rious procession. A costly monument is 
to be erected to the memory of this great 
peasant. I saw the design, and thought it 
cumbrous. The tomb of such a man cannot 
be too plain. A block of granite on a 
mountain's top were enough ; and I would 
have it on a mountain hitherto pathless : 
then would every footstep of the way be a 
trace of, and a tribute to, his fame. 

The man who served me during my stay 
at Inspruck had been at Mantua when 
Hofer was put to death, and saw him shot. 
He was an Italian of the regular indolent 
domestique-de-place character, roused, as he 
described it, by the running past of an idle 
crowd, and the cries that a man was to be 



THE TYROL. 209 

shot : some designating him as the great 
robber, some the mountaineer with the 
long beard, some the traitor, some the 
rebel. He told me that Hofer walked pale 
and praying, but very firmly ; that he gave 
his watch, just before the fatal moment, into 
the hands of a by-stander, as a legacy to his 
family, and died easily : — a better head 
and a worse heart, and Hofer would not 
thus have died. A Tyrolese gentleman 
told me that during a great part of the 
time of that insurrection, Hofer was very 
unhappy, by finding himself involved in the 
administering of so many affairs, of which 
he knew nothing. His great adviser was a 
priest, and among his minor advisers 
another, who, it is whispered, finally be- 
trayed him. Even Hofer could not escape 
the charge of injustice, nor perhaps the 
real though unintentional commission of it. 
To a person who appeared before him on 
behalf of a friend who had been taken up 
and put into prison, his reply was, " Your 
friend cannot be a good man or without 
fault in this matter, or he would not be in 
prison ." but it is fair to add, the counsellor- 



210 THE TYROL. 

priest was at his elbow; for it does not sound 
like the character of a man, who, long be- 
fore the insurrection, was continually ap- 
pealed to by his countrymen as a just ar- 
bitrator, as one who would hear both sides, 
say what in his conscience he thought, and 
from whose decision they cared not to 
appeal. The fate that lifts a man into a 
situation of high responsibility may bring 
him fame, and high renown, and lasting 
gratitude, but it will deny him peace till 
he finds it in the silent grave. 

The convent of the Capuchins in this city 
contains a cell, whither the great Maxi- 
milian was wont to retire at certain seasons 
for the purposes of devotion, and where he 
performed the strict penances so common 
to the age in which he lived. The rude ar- 
ticles of furniture in this cell and a wooden 
inkstand are said to have been the work of 
the monarch's own hand. Even the seclu- 
sion of the penitent is found insupportable 
without some occupation that may exercise 
the body, and divert the mind from the 
oppressive weight of thought. The cell of 
a royal penitent does always more deeply 



THE TYROL. 211 

interest us. Here it is that we find them 
men, poor men like ourselves, seeking rest 
for their hearts : — a rest which the cell 
and the stripe, the vigil and the fast, can 
never give. 

The walks about the city are on all sides 
beautiful and interesting, for the valley is 
of the greenest, and the loftiest mountains 
rise close above it. There were several 
companies of Tyrolese jagers stationed in 
this city. They appeared fine young men, 
brownly ruddy, erect and soldierlike, but 
certainly much disfigured by a most unbe- 
coming uniform. The jacket and trowsers 
are of a dull dirty grey, the hat round, like 
that worn by our marines, and like that 
looped up on one side, but the brim of it 
is narrow and scanty, and the whole dress 
has a paltry and unmartial appearance. 
I must except the officers and sergeants, 
whose hats are overshadowed by large black 
plumes, falling, like those on the Scottish 
bonnet, with a severe and frowning grace. 
In general the rustic gains in personal ap- 
pearance by exchanging the garb of a 
labourer for the uniform of a soldier ; but 

p 2 



212 THE TYROL. 

the peasant of Tyrol sacrifices all that 
in costume is calculated to display the 
form. The fine calf of his well-made leg is 
hidden under loose trowsers, his manly 
neck confined by a leathern stock, and the 
very rifle in his hand, if you couple with it 
his black cross-belts, looks less warlike than 
the weapon he has been wont to bear, 
when, with a broad cartouch-belt girt 
around his waist, he leapt lightly on the 
hunter's paths among his native mountains, 
or stood steady in his aim opposite the 
prize-target in the vale, sure to hit the 
bull's eye, and place it in pride above his 
cottage-door. 

It was pleasant to me, as I walked the 
streets here, and in many cities throughout 
the Austrian dominions, to be saluted, as 
I frequently was, by the soldiers. The of- 
ficers of the Austrian army almost in- 
variably wear plain clothes in their home 
garrisons, except on the parade or on any 
duty, a circumstance which may account 
for this. Often, however, this compliment 
was paid tojrie by soldiers who evidently 
recognised j^fe for an Englishman and an 



THE TYROL. 213 

officer, although no part of my dress as to 
make or colour announced my profession. 
The circumstance gave me a very natural 
pleasure. I was glad to see the army of my 
country so widely respected, proud to be- 
long to it, and glad to feel that the bivouac 
had left its mark on me. Military life is a 
strange, an unnatural life, but full of in- 
cident and excitation, The man who has 
passed the brightest and best years of 
his existence in the army is in general ill 
adapted to fall down quietly into a still 
place in private life, especially in England, 
where, happily for our glorious constitution, 
however mortifying to the individual, an 
officer is not much considered at any time. 
It is too often forgotten by John Bull, 
that, at that very period of life, when the 
members of most other professions are 
reaping a something into the garner for 
the winter of their days, his officers who 
have served him and upheld his name all 
through the spring and summer of their 
existence, have given him their youth, 
and health, and strength, and perhaps have 

p 3 



214 THE TYROL. 

cast down their little all of money on 
the promotion lottery-table, have no har- 
vest to look to, not even the gleaning of 
a field ; that most of them are fit only, 
" like rusty swords and helmets, to hang up 
i' the armory," but without the hope that 
" new wars could new burnish them again." 
This feeling, among retired military men, 
acting upon old habits and early associations, 
produces what has been called demoralisation, 
a very long word which has been in every 
body's mouth since the fall of Napoleon, 
and the dispersion of his vast army ; a word 
which does simply mean, I take it, that 
undefined aching of the old soldier's heart 
after the melancholy pleasures (for they 
still are pleasures) of campaigning. Yet 
the active spring of gladness which gave 
quick motion to that heart in youth, and 
in its first fields, may never again be hoped 
for, and might not, nay, assuredly would 
not, in like scenes be found. This demo- 
ralisation, as it is called, is but the missing 
of accustomed things, and the longing for 
them. The atmosphere of affection in 



THE TYROL. 215 

which you moved, rude and rough as it 
may have been ; the old soldiers with whose 
good or bad qualities you were as familiar 
as with their brown faces ; the young whom 
you encouraged ; the very rascals who were 
as thorns in your flesh, whom you ruled 
with rigour, or reclaimed with judgment, — 
all the little favours of which an officer is 
the dispensing patron, — the very trump 
and the drum will be regretted, — the 
music of the march and the music at the 
meal j and as for friendship, take an old 
soldier's word for it, in the common rela- 
tions of man to man, the title of brother 
officers may stand high. If this be, as I sus- 
pect it is, demoralisation, why, then, I fear it 
will be found an inhabitant in the bosom of 
many a soldier in retirement, who, though 
he may have chosen earlier from wisdom, 
what must sooner or later have been his 
fate, does not feel his weaning the less. 

I engaged a place in a carriage returning 
to Vienna, for the chance of companion- 
ship ; but I took care to bargain for a halt 
of three days at Saltzburg. My travelling 

p 4 



216 THE TYROL. 

companions were a parish priest, and a 
student of Padua, both natives of German 
Tyrol, and both enthusiasts in their love of 
their native country. The priest spoke 
French with tolerable fluency, and could 
read English a little ; the student under- 
stood French, but could not converse in 
that language : both, however, spoke Italian 
freely, so that we made out famously. I 
liked them both : the priest, to my regret, 
quitted us at Saltzburg. I shall long re- 
collect this worthy pastor with affectionate 
respect: his polite attentions, his cheerful- 
ness, his kindness, his exhaustless store of 
interesting talk, his tolerant notions, his 
Christian feeling, and an occasional tinge 
of melancholy, that would chase for a few 
minutes, and a few minutes only, his cus- 
tomary animation, impressed me deeply. 
" Gratias a Dio" was a phrase often on 
his lip, not uttered coldly or cantingly, but 
with a rub of the hand, and a sparkle of the 
eye that told you it was ever in his heart : 
he gave it to the sunshine and the shade; 
to the beautiful prospect and the running 



THE TYROL. 217 

river ; to the pleasant rest and the pleasant 
meal, and the cool chamber. I could have 
journeyed with such a man all the world 
over; he ordered all our meals, made all 
payments, gave content to every one, and 
host, hostesses, and kellerin, if they did 
not smile when they first saw him, were 
sure to part from him with that sort of 
kindly smiling regret which is so pleasing, 
and so flattering to the traveller, where he 
can believe it to be sincere. 

My companions sung for me, again and 
again, the Evening Hymn of the Tyrolese 
peasants, beginning, " Der liebenfeuerstunde 
schleckt ;" " The loved hour of repose is 
striking," or, as our English bard has it, 
" The curfew tolls the knell of parting 
day." 

The burden of this song, or hymn, as 
they brokenly and imperfectly rendered it 
for me, is beautiful, the ideas poetical, and 
the lesson, — Content. Even thus pro- 
saically given, the reader will admit its 
beauty : — 



218 THE TYROL. 

" The loved hour of repose is striking ; 
let us come to the sun-set tree ; let us lie 
down in the pleasant shade. Oh ! how 
sweet is rest after labour ! How I pity 
those who lie all day on the couch of down, 
and are fatigued with doing nothing ! They 
know not the sweetness of rest like ours : 
sweet is this hour of repose, and sweet is 
the repose of the Sabbath-day ; but sweeter 
will be the repose of that long Sabbath, 
when we all rest from our labours, in the 
presence of our heavenly Father ! There 
will be no sun to burn us ; there will be no 
toil, no pain, no poverty, no sorrow, no sin, 
but sweet and long will be our rest in 
heaven." 

Relying upon the assurance of these 
good friends that I should procure both 
the words and air at Vienna, and upon 
my own memory to enquire for them, I 
neglected to take them down at the time, 
and have since repeatedly searched for them 
in music shops, but in vain. The air is 
uncommonly simple ; and I doubt whether 
even in Vienna, where, amid new objects, 



THE TYROL. 219 

I forgot it altogether, I could have pro- 
cured the same unadorned melody which 
the peasants sing, each evening, at the sun- 
set tree. I was more pleased with it every 
time I listened; it is devotional, and, sung 
from and with the heart, by men who rise 
early to labour, and late take rest, is an 
evening sacrifice, accepted, surely, at the 
gates of heaven. 

The Tyrolese, according to their light 
and persuasion, have a great reverence for 
Divine things. This was eminently shown 
during their insurrection (or war, I will 
call it) ; for the mild character of the 
Christian religion, as taught by their simple 
parochial clergy, subdued in them those 
vindictive feelings, or, at least, the cruel 
acting of them against the prisoner and 
the captive. 

I observed that my good priest often 
rose suddenly, almost immediately after 
our meals, and paced up and down the 
room in a hurried nervous manner ; then 
he would pause, and seat himself again at 
table, and apologise to me for so doing ; 



220 THE TYROL. 

but he told me, as an excuse, and a mourn- 
ful one it sounded, that often, when at 
his home, he made his solitary meal walk- 
ing about the room ; for that living quite 
alone, he had not, as I can well under- 
stand, at all times the heart to sit down to 
a table. He taught me a few German 
words, and pledged himself to make a Ger- 
man of me in three months, if I would 
come up to his mountain, and study. His 
parish, he told me, was situated about five 
leagues from Saltzburg, and consisted of 
five hundred souls, of the very poorest 
class, few of whom could read or write, 
and not one among the whole com- 
panionable for him : neither were any of 
his clerical brothers sufficiently near for 
social intercourse. He represented the 
manners of his flock as extremely simple, 
their moral conduct excellent, their igno- 
rance that of children, their obedience that 
of children. He took occasion, from this 
statement, to start the subject of our Bible 
Societies, and to condemn the distribution 
of the Holy Scriptures among the common 



THE TYROL. 221 

people, asking me many questions con- 
cerning our societies in England established 
for that purpose. We had a long and in- 
teresting conversation, and, of course, all 
the old arguments were soon gone over. I 
most successfully used the argumentum ad 
hominem in this instance ; for compelling 
him to acknowledge the light, the life, the 
hope, the peace, the consolation that he found 
in the possession and daily use of that ines- 
timable treasure himself; as also, that if the 
child of the peasant were instructed, at a 
tender age, in the common rudiments of 
plain learning, his capabilities are like those 
of a child in any other class, and that he 
might acquire the power of reading the 
Gospel for himself, and, by the assistance 
of God's Holy Spirit, make a believing 
application of it to the wants of his own 
heart, at all times and seasons, — I drove 
him into that intrenched corner, where, 
as a Roman Catholic priest, he was, per- 
haps, compelled to take refuge, — " that 
the mother-church is the sole guardian 
and the only true interpreter of God's 
word, and that ignorance would corrupt 



222 THE TYROL. 

it, and wrest it to its own destruction." 
Thus it is that spiritual bondage is per- 
petuated from generation to generation. 
I pressed him a little upon the strict and 
severe government of his church, especially 
of that species of discipline which watched 
over and controlled all, even the minutest 
actions of domestic life ; I saw that his 
mind was with me. I spoke to him of the 
enforced celibacy of the priesthood, and I 
got fairly into his heart ; for he said, with 
sad eyes and a melancholy warmth, that it 
was the institution of man, and certainly 
not the appointment of God. He asked 
me to read for him a chapter of Isaiah, 
from an English pocket Bible. I did. He 
expressed himself delighted and moved with 
the rich majesty of our language, and said 
the Latin version seemed poor compared 
to it ; so I told him was the Greek con- 
sidered to be by our best scholars ; and it 
was generally allowed that the English 
translation was alive and warm with the very 
spirit and power of the Hebrew. 

I dwell upon this chance-companion at 
some length, and with delight, because, 



THE TYROL. 228 

although it is by no means true of any 
nation, " ex uno disce omnes" yet the infer- 
ences to be drawn concerning a people, 
by intercourse with individuals of different 
classes, ages, and professions, however 
short that intercourse may be, are not to 
be lightly regarded. One painful subject, 
connected w T ith English policy, this worthy 
man, and many others of intelligence 
whom I occasionally met, questioned me 
upon, with a kind of wonder, — the state 
of Ireland. Who can explain it to the 
satisfaction of a clear head and an honest 
heart? When all is told that is known, 
or can be thought of, to extenuate, and 
only to extenuate, our blundering legis- 
lation for that unhappy country, still the 
question recurs, are these things to be 
for ever so ? is this crying evil to endure 
for ever ? — and the Englishman can only 
answer by hanging down his head, in sorrow 
and in shame. 

I believe that if the Irish Roman Ca- 
tholics had been emancipated twenty years 
ago, thousands and thousands of them 
would now be of the Protestant persuasion ; 



224 SALTZBURG. 

that the whole nation would have pro- 
gressed rapidly towards spiritual liberty, 
in the light of the distributed Word, long 
ere this ; but the language held by the mis- 
taken zealots of a cause, which, after all, 
perhaps, the mass of thinking Englishmen 
have more warmly at heart than they, has, 
as it seems to me, more than once alarmed 
not only the timid and intolerant Church 
of England men, but its good and conscien- 
tious members, and has disturbed, if not for 
a time destroyed, the hopes of every lover 
of civil and religious freedom. 

But I am forgetting the Unter Inthal, 
through which we travelled, and which is 
of uncommon beauty. The Inn is ever near 
you, the prospects varied and romantic, and 
you pass occasionally the green yet rocky 
mouth of some happy valley, that is the 
world of its rustic population. 

The entrance to Saltzburg is very strik- 
ing ; it is by a noble gateway, cut through 
the rock, under which you drive for nearly 
one hundred yards. " Te saxa loquuntur" 
is the appropriate inscription ; and the 
bust of the Prince-Bishop, who executed 



SALTZBURG. 225 

the work, is above. It was fair-time, and 
the streets were full of women, with a 
strange-shaped cap of gilded tissue. The 
appearance of it is remarkably contrasted 
with the plainness of all the rest of their 
dress, and, as it is not very tasteful or be- 
coming, it is, doubtless, some dear remnant 
of ancient costume, clung to by successive 
generations, who, from childhood, fix their 
eyes with a fascinated gaze on the glit- 
tering thing it will one day be their privi- 
lege to wear. Saltzburg is a fine city, that 
is, the situation is very fine. It has a 
handsome square, a lofty and commanding 
citadel, some fine churches, a famous ce- 
metery, many handsome houses, and two 
country palaces in the immediate suburbs ; 
but the uncommon grandeur of the scenery 
around this city fixes the admiration of 
every beholder. It is Alpine, and just at 
the proper distance for giving outlines the 
most bold, and every light and shade that 
alternate mountain and defile can present. 
The views from the citadel, which is large 
and empty, and about the lonely chambers 
of which it is a pleasure to be led, are very 

Q 



226 SALTZBURG. 

fine ; that from the summit of Monchsberg 
magnificent. The apartment is shown you 
where one of the former Prince-Bishops 
was confined for five years, by order of the 
Pope, because he had brought a scandal 
on the episcopal character, by wedding 
privately a fair Gabrielle, whose statue, re- 
cumbent, executed in a coarse and spotted 
marble, you may see at the pleasure-chateau 
of Helbrunn, where there is a pretty park, 
stocked with deer, a natural amphitheatre 
of rock, and a garden childishly laid out, and 
full of silly tricks and toys. 

There is a remarkably fine riding-house 
in Saltzburg, the menage of which, in its 
day, was very famous. It is now used by 
a regiment of Hungarian hussars. I walked 
through their stables ; there appeared to 
me a great want of order and cleanliness ; 
but I was struck with the paintings in the 
winter riding-school, where all the repre- 
sented practice, both of horse and swords- 
manship, is pictured by stricken and be- 
headed Turks. The figure of the Turk 
yet remains as the target, the butt, or 
fancied opponent of the Christian cavalier. 



SALTZBURG. 227 

The summer riding-school is spacious, 
open, and backed by a scarped rock, in 
which are cut galleries for the numerous 
and noble spectators, who were wont, in 
former times, to assist at these exhibitions. 
A statue of Bucephalus rears at the water- 
ing fountain, and horses are pictured in a 
rude painting behind, in every variety of 
playful and skittish action. Certainly the 
bishops of Saltzburg were of the church mi- 
litant, in the lowest sense of that word, and 
should have worn helmets instead of mitres. 
About nine miles from Saltzburg are 
the famous salt-works of Hallein. It is a 
beautiful drive, and a most rewarding sight ; 
to me, moreover, it was a new thing, for a 
mine I had never seen. I took an early 
dinner in the town of Hallein, at a very 
comfortable hotel, where I was well and 
cheerfully served. At a table in the same 
room sat two gentlemen, of middle age, 
one of whom, a pale clever-looking man 
with bad health and bright eyes, soon fell 
into conversation with me. While it was 
general, all was well ; but as soon as he 
found, on questioning me, that I was come 

Q 2 



228 SALTZBURG. 

to visit the mine, he broke away on his 
hobby, and left me at a wondering, but not 
an envying distance. He recommended to 
me the perusal of two quarto volumes, in 
which these salt-works were most parti- 
cularly described, and some other volumes 
of like dimension, on his favourite study. 
He politely expressed his regret that he 
could not have the pleasure of accompany- 
ing me that evening, and I saw he would 
not unwillingly have done so. When he 
took his departure, the steel hammer at 
the head of his walking-stick announced to 
me that he was that most formidable of 
enthusiasts, — an enthusiastic geologist ;— a 
travelling nobleman, as my host informed 
me, and very learned. Although his man- 
ners were most pleasing, I was heartily 
glad to be left alone with my ignorance. 
The language of geology is one apart, as 
hard as granite, but not quite as durable ; 
for I am told the terms are continually 
changing. To have taken my first lesson 
in that study in a mine would, doubtless, 
have been a great advantage ; but I freely 
confess that the last thing I wanted to 



SALTZBURG. 229 

listen to in the bowels of the earth was a 
lecture on geology, as diffuse as this worthy 
philosopher would probably have given me. 
I ascended the mountain behind Hallein, 
by a beautiful and easy path, amid scenery 
of a most peculiar and enchanting cha- 
racter. There is the black pine, as in 
Switzerland, and there is grass and pasture 
intermingled with the forest patches, as in 
that country ; but yet they are differently 
disposed, and the verdure of the sward is 
of that beautiful depth which, I have been 
told, is so remarkable during their brief 
summer in Norway. As far as imagination 
has ever pictured to me Norwegian scenery, 
that of the mountain above Hallein must 
greatly resemble it. — Near the summit of 
the mountain you find a small church and 
a few dwellings, and not very distant, in 
the face of a small cliff, is the entrance into 
the mine. You are taken into a small 
room ; a light coarse dress (as of a miner), 
which entirely covers your own, is given 
to you ; one stout glove, as worn and 
polished as the groove of a pulley, for 
holding the ropes as you descend the 
q 3 



230 SALTZBURG. 

shafts ; a lighted candle is put into your 
hand, and with a miner before you who 
does not talk, and a dornestique de place 
who will if you let him, you enter the rock. 
Man is the rabbit here : innumerable long 
passages pierce the mountain in every 
direction : they are, for the most part, 
strongly lined and roofed with rough tim- 
ber ; but the swelling and pregnant earth 
does, here and there, force a way, and, be- 
tween the gaping ribs and rafters, you see 
the rock-salt, with its veins, of a deep or 
bright colour : the grey and red predomi- 
nate, but, occasionally, it has a fine yellow 
tinge, or is variegated with a dark blue. 
The descents, although some of them are 
considerable, are none formidable, or even 
difficult : you lie down on an inclined plank, 
between two smoothly rounded spars ; a 
rope, which is made fast, both above and 
below, is held lightly in the hand, and you 
descend with the greatest possible ease. 
If you lie too far back, the motion is slow, 
and hesitating ; if you lean too far forwards, 
you may, and probably will, pitch upon 
your head : but if you hit the happy me- 



SALTZBURG. 231 

dium, " the cord flies swiftly through your 
glowing hand," and, quick as lightning, 
you are fathoms down below. There are 
two-and-thirty reservoirs at Hallein ; the 
principal one will long be remembered by 
the visitor. Emerging from a narrow gal- 
lery in the rock, I came suddenly upon the 
edge of a small lake. A faint and lurid 
light gleamed upon the surface of it ; some 
human figures, indistinctly seen as to forms 
or faces, further than that all were pale, 
stood and moved on the bank opposite. I 
entered a small bark with my guide, and 
was ferried over it. All that I had ever 
read of the heathen hell — of the hell that 
poets feign — rushed to my imagination, and 
my blood ran chill with an awful delight. 
The rock above is blackness and darkness, 
and glistens slimy and damp as the grave. 
The rock around is so thrown into shadow, 
as to look cavernous and sepulchral. The 
water is stagnant and sluggish, without a 
voice, without a smile : all is severe, all 
sad; it seems a gulf between life and 
death, or rather, between the grave and 
hell. 

Q4 



232 SALTZBURG. 

I lingered long here fascinated as by 
some unearthly power ; I passed and re- 
passed the gloomy water ; I walked on the 
rocky bank there where it lay in deepest 
shadow; and from the sixth book of the 
iEneid I peopled the melancholy region. 
Nor did I forget that great gulf, which the 
Word of Truth has told us is fixed be- 
tween those that have served God and 
those that have served Satan. All may 
read that book of the iEneid with deep 
profit to their souls beyond the solemn 
pleasure which it must afford the ima- 
gination. 

" That angry justice form'd a dreadful hell, 
That ghosts in subterraneous regions dwell, 
That hateful Styx his muddy current rolls, 
And Charon ferries o'er embodied souls, 
Are now as tales or idle fables priz'd, 
By children question'd, and by men despis'd, 
Yet this do thou believe !" 

Such children and such men may find 
that in all ages it has been easy to wound 
the conscience and convict human beings 
of sin ; and he may learn that to heal the 
wounded conscience was beyond the power 



SALTZBURG. 233 

of the wisest teachers of mankind till the 
soft voice of the Gospel-message was de- 
livered. 

" Lightning and thunder (Heaven's artillery) 
As harbingers before th' Almighty fly : 
Those but proclaim his style, and disappear, 
The stiller sound succeeds, and God is there !" 

Small as the first faint ray of mercy 
dawning on the darkened soul is the gleam 
of light, which, from a black chamber in 
the bosom of the mine, is visible at the 
extremity of a gallery, that seems intermin- 
able. You take a seat with your guide on 
a kind of wooden horse on wheels, and are 
dragged with great rapidity for eight hun- 
dred yards along a narrow passage in the 
rock, not without an apprehension that you 
may be bruised against the sides of it, and, 
at length, emerge in safety at the bottom 
of the mountain, on the opposite side, and 
find yourself in a scene of wood and grass, 
lighted by the sun, and still, but the still- 
ness of life. You hail it, your flesh and 
your heart leap to the vivifying influence, 



234 SALTZBURG. 

and you lie down upon earth's green lap, 
as on that of a mother. 

I returned home to Saltzburg delighted : 
I had seen, as I have said, a new thing. I 
well know that I ought to have been dis- 
appointed. You see at Hallein no cham- 
bers of the rock in crystal, no grottoes, no 
chapels, no dwellings, no families begotten, 
born, and reared, where the sun never shone. 
The reservoir or lake of which I have spoken 
is said, when fully illuminated, as it is occa- 
sionally, out of compliment to royal visitors, 
or conquerors of renown, to present a su- 
perb spectacle. The few feeble torches 
which they placed around it for me, and 
which just served to make darkness visible, 
I should, even by choice, have preferred. 

I could not help smiling to myself as I 
drove home to think of my escape from the 
man of science, and his equal good fortune ; 
for I should certainly have either run rudely 
from him in the labyrinthine passages of 
the mine, or have been silent, or inatten- 
tive, or worse for him, put him behind me 
on my broomstick, and carried him away 



SALTZBURG. 235 

into the regions of the air, leaving his ham- 
mer and some glorious specimen crystal- 
lized in cubes far behind us. 

The day following I made an excursion 
to the lake of Berchtolsgaden. It is about 
ten miles from Saltzburg, and in a direc- 
tion which would admit of its being easily 
visited on the same day as Hallein, if the 
traveller started at an early hour, and made 
his arrangements accordingly. The road is 
for a considerable distance the same, but 
where it turns away winds through a nar- 
row and most picturesque valley watered by 
the Achen, on and above which the town 
is built, having, as it should, for the travel- 
ler's sake, a convent and a castle. I passed 
it in going, on the other side of the stream, 
and drove through it on my return. 

I alighted near a fisher's hut on the 
banks of the lake. At the well known 
call, out came a smiling family of brothers 
and sisters to man the bark : one of the 
sisters nearly woman, one of the brothers 
nearly man, all good-looking and cheerful, 
making a pastime of their light labour. It 
is a two-hours' row to the head of the lake, 



236 SALTZBURG. 

where stands a solitary old hunting lodge 
belonging to the King of Bavaria. This 
lake may, for its size, vie with the very 
finest part of the lake of the four Cantons 
in Switzerland. The mountain that rises 
to the south of it is very lofty, inaccessible, 
and of the sternest aspect ; the face of it is 
roughly scarped, all of bare stony rock, rifted 
and jagged. To look down into the clear 
and placid lake and see this majestic alp 
reflected there, and to watch how the 
gentlest ripple gave it such play and waver, 
as a garment floating in the air, was won- 
derful. It is not solid, then, this glorious 
earth, — a bright shadow only, a thing that 
shall be wrapped up and changed as a 
vesture. 

About three miles from the landing 
place, at the foot of this naked mountain, 
is a natural curiosity, called the Chapel of 
Ice. I walked there by a wild path through 
a wood, and among stumps overgrown with 
moss, which led out upon the stony bed of 
a winter torrent : up this, for there is little 
water in it in summer, you pass, and see 
before you, at the foot of the mountain, a 



SALTZBURG. 237 

very small glacier. From its situation it is 
much sheltered from the sun, and the snow- 
lying supported by the two sides of a small 
ravine through which a stream continually 
flows, that hollow is formed which has given 
rise to its name. I left my guide at the 
mouth, and proceeded up it alone. There 
is no kind of hazard or difficulty : you have 
to scramble and slip over the huge stones 
which have been worn round and smooth 
by the torrent, and water drops on you 
from the snowy roof. One chasm in that 
roof lets in the blue sky and the sunbeam, 
and lights up the very inmost recess of this 
rude and chilly oratory. Undine alone 
could perform a vigil in it with comfort. I 
walked out upon the crackling surface of the 
snow, and again descended beneath it to feel 
and enjoy the thing; to listen to the running 
water, and the slow and mournful droppings 
from the glistening roof. Proud temples 
of stone and marble shall crumble and be 
overthrown, while in this the hermit, or 
the hunter, or the lone traveller shall 
breathe his unuttered prayer, for centuries 
to come, in peace. War, tumult, rapacity, 



238 SALTZBURG. 

persecution, never reach a spot like this : — 
happy the king that has so lone a hut to 
run to, and discrown himself, as the hunt- 
ing lodge of Berchtolsgaden. They gave 
me there a plain and delicious repast of 
fresh fish, and some excellent wine. I sat 
in the quiet chamber and rude chair 
where the (late) King of Bavaria was wont to 
take his homely meals, and talk of the 
sports he loved with plain men, who liked 
them as much as himself. It was delightful 
to hear the people at this place speak of the 
King, and not only they but the commonest 
rustics of Berchtolsgaden. Not long after 
this very day I heard of the sudden death 
of this excellent man while at Vienna. For 
that evening, however* I enjoyed for him 
the dream of a longer life, and of repeated 
visits to his fishing cottage. 

The return across the lake was still more 
delightful than the passage of the morning. 
The sisters and their brothers sang as they 
plied their oars. I landed at one or two 
fine points, and at last reluctantly came on 
shore, and was driven most rapidly home. 

There is a comfortable inn at Saltzburg. 



SALTZBURG. 239 

I got a most excellent room, and was well 
served. I should think it a delightful place 
to pass a month at as head-quarters, and 
make excursions among the mountains. 

I observed at table a young man rather 
of the dandy cast, red and white, and who 
spoke French always, but with a bad and 
affected pronunciation, and a wretched 
choice of expressions. I learned that he 
was a prince, and a captain in the regiment 
of Austrian infantry stationed in the city. 
I must remark, in passing, that in the 
Austrian army the considered, or, as we 
familiarly term them, crack regiments of 
foot, rank before and much higher than 
their cavalry, and have more men of family 
among their officers. From some enquiries 
which I made here, as to prices and the 
common expenditure among young military 
men of his cast, I found that with an income 
which would scarcely keep a British officer 
in the garrison of Dublin, however quietly 
he might desire to live, this gentleman was 
enabled to keep two men-servants, (not 
soldiers) two horses which he rode or drove 
in light carriages, two of which he kept, a 



240 SALTZBURG. 

close and an open one ; all this he did upon 
two hundred florins a month ; and I was 
assured, and made to see from calculation, 
that the thing was easy. To be sure there 
is one thing that would never meet the 
ideas of an Englishman, — the personal ex- 
penditure of this man at table, for all his 
meals, did not, perhaps, on ordinary oc- 
casions, amount to two florins a day. But 
the luxury of conveyance is cheap in Ger- 
many, as also the hire of common valets 
and grooms. If you are in a town of any 
size or consequence you can procure an 
excellent, and often a very elegant carriage, 
with good horses, and a respectable coach- 
man, at a very reasonable daily rate. I left 
Saltzburg with the hope that in the course 
of my life I might visit it again, and be 
enabled to make a longer stay there. 

The kutcher had supplied the place of 
our worthy padre by a fat woman who had 
been selling the refuse millinery of her 
shop in Vienna at the fair of Saltzburg. 
After one glance of reconnoissance, I ex- 
ulted in the discovery that she did not 
speak a word of French or Italian. It was 



AUSTRIA. 241 

as good as a comedy to see the kutcher 
reading my face as he introduced this new 
passenger, and evidently thinking about the 
possible effect she might have in trying 
my temper, and so diminishing his drink- 
money at the close of our long journey. 
We certainly doubly regretted our late com- 
panion, but the young student and myself 
lived together and made the best of it: she 
never ate with us, to our great delight ; and 
we gave one side of the vehicle to her per- 
son, her pockets, and her parcels. 

The small post-towns of this part of 
Germany have a very dull, uninteresting 
aspect : one street, and two or three indif- 
ferent inns, are generally what you dis- 
cover — and all. 

The noon-day repast in these small inns 
is not very tempting : a bad soup and a slice 
of hard beef is the usual fare, but you can 
generally get a good glass of wine to wash 
it down. 

The first evening we had a large party at 
table, and they were all talking about 
steam-engines, with a most violent degree 
of wonder and interest. The circumstance 



242 AUSTRIA. 

of our sending a steam-vessel to India, 
which they had just read of in a newspaper, 
had set them off; and though many of them 
spoke French, and were very anxious, ap- 
parently, to converse with me, it was with 
difficulty I could keep them in their anima- 
tion, out of their dear expressive German. 
I remember well, in the early part of the 
memorable year 1814, living for some weeks 
en pension with the sous prefet of a depart- 
ment in France, when a prisoner in that 
country, and that three German officers were 
also of the party. It was a particularly in- 
teresting period, and one when politics were 
daily discussed, and also the movements of 
the French and the allies, who were then in 
the heart of France. This was done freely 
and allowedly, the Frenchmen taking their 
part, just as men should do, and agreeing to 
differ on many points. All these Germans 
spoke French and English admirably, but it 
was irresistibly diverting to see them, as they 
warmed, break from French into English, 
as nearer the genius of their own language, 
and soon after away into their rugged Ger- 
man, every .eye in a sparkle, and every 



AUSTRIA. 243 

mouth frothing at the corner, while myself 
and the Frenchmen were left behind, I to 
translate to them, what they had said in 
English, and both of us to wait with pa- 
tience till they gave us a lame French ver- 
sion of what they had volubly poured out 
in German. 

It will be seen that what is called speak- 
ing a little of a language will not answer 
with the German ; he can neither listen to, 
understand, nor attempt to support a con- 
versation with you so. I think it is the 
author of" An Autumn on the Rhine" who 
represents himself as venturing on a little 
conversation in German with some old 
dowager whom he met, and being, literally, 
thrown out at starting. To return : with 
this party our nation stood the highest and 
first : we were every thing that was ener- 
getic, and industrious, and wonderful. Not- 
withstanding, however, all that the Aus- 
trian may utter in favour of other countries, 
all that he may trust himself to say against 
the ministers of his own, still the very 
word " Kaiser" is dear to him ; and cer- 
tainly the Emperor has the hearts and 

r 2 



244 AUSTRIA. 

voices of his people, as far as he and his 
family are concerned. 

The following day at our noon-repast we 
met two or three parties of travellers who 
halted at the same inn : in one of them my 
eye caught an unhappy Englishman, and 
my ear the disastrous accents of some 
French, calamitously pronounced, and this 
in a vain and unintelligible effort to be 
playful with the German ladies of another 
party. His age, the cut of his black coat, 
his spectacles, all made me conjecture that 
he was some wandering lexicon that had 
rashly left his college-rooms, his commons, 
and his bed-maker, for a voyage of dis- 
covery. I thought the sound of English 
might be a comfort to him, and, as I wanted 
myself to learn the latest English news, I 
crossed the room to accost him. He was 
as gruff as an under porter : he had not 
seen, he said, nor asked for a paper while 
in Vienna. To humble, to punish him, I 
asked, if he had not felt the embarrassment 
of not being able to speak German. He 
growled out " No," his French carried him 
every where. I saw him turn over a bit of 



AUSTRIA. 245 

rindfleisch (beef) and some sour krout with 
uncontrollable dissatisfaction ; he looked as 
if he had been long unbrushed, and was 
thoroughly uncomfortable : he evidently 
disliked his companions, and they him. I 
politely bade him a good day and a good 
journey, which he angrily acknowledged. 
His party, in wonder, half rose, and bowed 
to me with a smile, and I left him to pur- 
sue my journey. Now fancy such a man's 
account of Germany at his college-table, 
and fancy his fellow-traveller's portrait of 
their English companion. It is evidently 
a mistake for a man of an advanced age, 
settled habits, and without a foreign lan- 
guage, to attempt journeying on the Con- 
tinent, especially in a country like Ger- 
many, alone. I am persuaded that such a 
character brings false impressions away 
with him, and leaves behind him false, and 
undeservedly bad impressions, not only of 
himself but of the English temper. 

The famous Benedictine monastery of 
Molk, one of the most splendid in Austria, 
is the only remarkable object on the road 
between Lintz and Vienna. It has the 
r 3 



246 AUSTRIA. 

form and aspect of a palace : quadrangles, 
windows, staircases, galleries, apartments 
of a palace : all is light, and space, and 
magnificence. Its situation is very noble ; 
upon a rocky plateau, high, but immediately 
above the Danube, commanding a very fine 
view of the windings of the river. The 
country to the right, as you look up the 
stream, presents a vast spread of elevated 
plain ; plain that, when Napoleon rested 
here, was covered with trampling squad- 
rons of cavalry and heavy masses of his 
infantry advancing to the conquest of Vi- 
enna. They show you the chamber that he 
occupied, and a burn upon the floor of it, 
caused, as they told me, by his throwing 
down in anger a letter from the Emperor 
of Austria, declining to meet and give him 
an interview. He was not, I should think 5 
very likely to destroy such a document, 
even in the transport of his rage ; but this 
may be a fiery print of his wrath produced 
in some other manner. There is another 
version of the anecdote, and a half-con- 
sumed volume in the library, which he was 
said to be reading at the moment. The 



AUSTRIA, 247 

brothers, and the librarian among them, 
were at dinner, so that we neither saw the 
book nor heard the story correctly. 

There is a picture in this convent, in a 
small chapel, by Albert Durer, on which 
the traveller will gaze long with delight ; it 
is a Madonna, — no, not a Madonna, — " a 
Mutter Gottes" The head is mantled white; 
the face is fair, and full, and not young ; but 
the expression is all mother. I mean not to 
speak of it as a fine conception of the Virgin, 
but as a perfect one of a mother. 

There is another picture here of great 
excellence — a Rubens. The subject, The 
appearing of the Angels at the Sepulchre 
of our Lord, to declare his Resurrection 
to Mary Magdalene and the Women who 
accompanied her. The garments of these 
angels are shining, and their hair streams 
out of a brightness that marks them as 
immortal. There is a radiance about them 
that you would fear but for the calmness 
that re-assures the troubled breast : — who 
does not love the things that give such 
strange and sublime emotions ? 

r 4 



248 



AUSTRIA. 



This abbey is rather collegiate in its 
character than monastic. The gardens are 
pleasant and well stocked, having green- 
houses and hot-houses. There is a hand- 
some music saloon in the midst of it, and 
a gay paper on the walls with eastern 
plants, their large bright flowers, and the 
painted birds of Asia. This does not look 
very convent-like ; but it is a monastery, 
and sadder, I think, as a residence, than 
one old and bare, and stained grey ; for, 
what are all these comforts ? what is this 
music saloon, if the voice of woman is 
never to warble there, her eye never to 
light it up ? 

Within ten miles of Vienna, at Burgers- 
dorf, I quitted my good kutcher and his 
vehicle, and took the post, that I might 
avoid embarrassment and delay at the 
gates. It was not without regret that I 
parted with my worthy young student. It 
would surprise those who hold the German 
students cheap, to listen to one of their 
better sort ; they literally sigh for know- 
ledge. They hoard their little all of money 



AUSTRIA. 249 

for the purchase of books, their all of time 
for the acquirement of learning. It is de- 
lightful to be questioned by them on any 
thing you fancy yourself to be well ac- 
quainted with, and not an easy thing to 
satisfy their intelligent curiosity. The go- 
vernment of Austria is very strict with all 
students ; will not suffer them to travel, 
and watches their conduct with great jea- 
lousy. This youth was studying at Padua 
to prepare himself for public employment 
in the Italian provinces. It is the present 
policy of Austria to encourage Germans to 
fill the public offices there, and her Italian 
subjects to seek situations in Austria 
Proper; a circumstance which causes the 
Italian language to be so much studied, 
that a traveller speaking Italian only, would 
find little difficulty in journeying from Ins- 
pruck to Vienna. 

In the immediate vicinity of Burgersdorf 
I took an evening walk before I ordered 
my horses ; and really the wooded beauty 
of the scenery, its stillness, the dress of 
the few peasants I met, the rude wooden 



250 AUSTRIA. 

bridges, the dells and paths, and the lone 
waters, might have induced me to believe 
that I was far, very far, from the crowds and 
the corruption of a capital. 

They gave me a pair of beautiful iron 
greys with long and silver tails, young, full 
of mettle, and in high condition, and I was 
driven cheerily to Vienna. I notice the 
horses, because, I should before have re- 
marked, that between Lintz and Vienna I 
frequently met light waggons either laden 
with small merchandise, or carrying pas- 
sengers of a humble class, who lay upon 
straw ; and yet, that very many of these 
waggons were drawn by four horses of great 
beauty and in high condition. It is de- 
lightful to observe throughout Germany 
how seldom horses are tasked or worked 
above their strength, or have the appear- 
ance of being ill fed and neglected. The 
only exceptions, indeed, that I remarked to 
this humane and creditable conduct, were 
among the drivers of the common fiacres in 
their large cities, and occasionally among 
such of their kutchers as had lost somewhat 



VIENNA. 251 

of their nation's tenderness for horses by as- 
sociating with French voituriers and Italian 
vetturini. 

It was dark when I reached the barrier. 
I found the very word " Englander" enough : 
they gave me no trouble about baggage, but 
received their small fee with a bow, and 
suffered me to drive instantly forward. 

We proceeded at a fast pace, through the 
wide street of a very long suburb, among 
numbers of carriages, all in rapid motion, 
and at last came out on a wide dark space, 
which separates the suburbs from the city. 
The city lay before me, no otherwise to be 
distinguished than by its numerous lights, 
which, as they shone up out of a blackness 
that completely enveloped both the walls 
and buildings, presented the appearance of 
a vast camp, or bivouac. A roll over a 
draw-bridge, a rattle under a gate-way, a 
drive up one street, and a turn into a clean 
court-yard, and the welcoming bell and re- 
spectful servants of a well-ordered hotel, 
will greet the traveller who directs his 
driver to take him to the Archduke Charles, 
in the Korner Strasse. He will find com- 



252 VIENNA. 

fortable apartments, civil attendance, ex- 
cellent fare, d la carte, at any hour, in 
a beautiful saloon, well-behaved domes- 
tiques de place, and a most respectable 
and handsome carriage whenever he may 
need one. The prices are fixed and rea- 
sonable. 

Vienna is not the city I, perhaps, ex- 
pected to find it, although a very delightful 
place ; indeed, I might have known that it 
could no longer be what, to the imagination 
of a fond reader of travels, it is so often 
represented. The figures in the streets of 
Vienna, both men and women, if I except 
a few of the lowest class, might walk un- 
distinguished and unobserved down Regent 
Street, or through the Burlington Arcade. 
The journeyman tailor, the bootmaker, the 
hatter, and the young milliner of London, 
might in the articles they respectively 
deal in, detect some difference in material 
or workmanship ; but the traveller sees 
around him hats, coats, trowsers, boots, 
black stocks, and high shirt-collars, such as 
he may have hoped that he had left behind ; 
bonnets, ribands, gowns, shoes, shawls, and 



VIENNA. 253 

false curls, such as he has seen before. 
Fashions now travel faster than they were 
wont to do ; and I think not that the very 
tasteful and elegant white chapeaux, so 
common among the belles of Vienna at the 
period of my visit, had been discarded at 
the very time from the promenades of Paris 
or of London. 

As to the old story of Turks, Tartars, 
Greeks, Poles, Croats, Sclavonians, and 
Hungarians, being seen every where in 
their national dresses, it is told, and will be 
repeated no more. The day for that kind 
of display, for that proud avowal of country 
and forefathers, is gone by : a solitary Turk 
may, perhaps, be seen scowling under his 
turban, near the hotel of an ambassador. 
The miserable Sclavonian peasants do, in- 
deed, in small groups, attract attention to 
their sallow cheeks, their lank and horrid 
hair, their coarse, and dull, and filthy garb; 
and the young Hungarian hussar still 
dashes past you, the pelisse hanging grace- 
fully from his shoulder, the kalpac looking 
noble on his head ; but for the visitors of 



254 VIENNA. 

other nations, Greek, Pole, even Tartar, 
they have sunk into plain, unpicturesque, 
hatted men. As a general observation, I 
should say the Viennese dress well. 

The aspect of Vienna, as to its streets 
and buildings, is different from that which 
I should have expected: it is not Ger- 
manic, it is Italian ; the palaces, the pub- 
lic buildings, the mansions of the nobility, 
have the regular Italian character, but are 
decidedly inferior to the stately edifices of 
Florence and of Rome. Manv of the 
streets in the city itself are narrow, and the 
houses lofty > an evidence of their age ; but 
yet there is nothing antique about them, 
or striking. Their shops, indeed, are dis- 
tinguished, as our own were in the olden 
time, by signs, either fixed or dangling 
above them, or by small paintings, display- 
ing the articles they sell. Here, over a 
hosier's shop, hangs a golden sheep ; there, 
at an apothecary's, figures Esculapius on a 
painted board ; while here again, upon the 
shutter of a chandler's shop, two flying 
Cupids (really very fairly executed) support 
between them — a pound of tallow candles! 



VIENNA. 255 

The squares, with the exception of Joseph 
Platz, and that of the palace, scarce de- 
serve the name ; the others, so called, are 
only open spaces, irregular in form, and 
appropriated to the holding of markets, or 
else such areas as have been left vacant, 
round churches. The Graben is one of the 
best and busiest of these open spaces, being 
filled with cheerful shops, and adorned 
with two fountains, and a curious monu- 
ment, commemorative of the plague which 
ravaged Vienna in 1679, and of the gra- 
titude of the Emperor Leopold and his 
people when it was stayed. 

There is one feature, however, in this 
city, which more than redeems the tame 
character of the rest : the august cathe- 
dral of St. Stephen stands lofty and alone 
in the midst of it. Upon its roof painted 
tiles glitter in the sunbeam, and seem 
gaudier than the adornments of so vener- 
able a pile should be ; moreover, the taste 
for that style of roofing is strictly Moorish. 
Yet I know not, if this very thing gives it 
not a new and peculiar interest in the eye 
of the traveller, as he reflects that the Ot- 



256 VIENNA. 

toman has pranced fierce before it, thirsting 
for its destruction. On the outside it may 
be said to be encumbered, but richly so, with 
ornamental stone-work. For my own part, 
I like that lavish expenditure of material, 
and of labour, which the Gothic nations 
bestowed upon their temples. I never 
enter one of the vast and noble cathedrals 
which they erected, that my heart does not 
thank them. They built always with costly, 
uncalculating devotion for a thousand ge- 
nerations. The interior of St. Stephen's is 
grand and grave : the space and the gloom 
give a liberty of thought to the spiritual 
minded, and afford a shade, in which the 
mourner may pray unnoticed by the happy. 

Prince Eugene, a name dear to the read- 
ing soldiers of all countries, reposes in this 
church : his tomb is in the chapel of the 
Holy Cross. I ascended the tower : the 
view is magnificent ; and it is a great plea- 
sure to see the huge bell, cast a century 
ago, from the cannon of the defeated Turk. 

There is in Vienna a museum of no 
small interest, called the Collection Am- 
bras, from the castle of that name in the 



VIENNA. 257 

Tyrol : it consists of old armour, old por- 
traits, old relics, old toys, old works of 
art. Woe to the curious or careless per- 
son who swept from my chamber, at some 
inn on my route home, the printed catalogue 
of its treasures, where I had pencilled down 
my delight in notes of admiration oppo- 
site many objects of interest, which I can 
no longer call to mind. The figures in 
armour are very numerous, and of re- 
nowned men ; they are disposed in many 
chambers, a few in each chamber, mounted, 
and the walls covered with arms and suits 
of armour. It is by far the finest exhibition 
of the kind I ever saw, and I am not for- 
getting our own line of kings, or the boy- 
throb with which I should still visit them. 
But these, although they cannot claim so 
high an historical interest, are kept in 
better order, disposed in better taste, and 
the whole display has a stern severity about 
it. These coats of mail, these helmets, 
these costly trappings and caparisons, glossy 
with their velvets, and heavy with em- 
broidery ; these long lances, and long 
swords, and beside them hung the Turkey 



258 VIENNA. 

bridle, and the crooked scimitar, and the 
captured crescent, — are things you can- 
not tire with gazing on. There is also 
a chamber with old portraits of the middle 
ages, and another with curiosities, such as 
delicate works in gold, ivory, rare shells, 
and precious stones, quaintly carved into 
toys, for the princely and the wealthy of 
by-gone days, — all objects of a singular 
interest to minds that like looking back 
into those ages. 

I mention this museum because it suits 
the English taste, — and there is much, in- 
deed, to be found all over Germany suited 
to that taste. 

To give an account of the museums and 
collections of Vienna in detail would re- 
quire a residence of many weeks or months 
in the city, and would fill a volume ; but it 
is not, I think, the province of the mere 
traveller to give catalogues of the contents 
of galleries, but a brief mention of their 
existence and value, and to present rather 
the impressions made on him by the ap- 
pearances of a country and a people. I 
must say, therefore, that every one who 



VIENNA. 259 

visits the city of Vienna will find that 
there are galleries rich in paintings, and 
that the museums in general are well de- 
serving his attention. 

There is a splendid library, the saloon 
of which is truly magnificent, and the rare 
and valuable curiosities of which they freely 
exhibit. — There is an interesting cabinet 
of natural history. 

There is a cabinet of antiquities, where 
the collection of engraved stone and ca- 
meos is uncommonly rich and beautiful ; 
and where, let me with gratitude record 
the name, a Monsieur Arnett shows them 
to the delighted stranger, with a patience, 
a kindness, and a courtesy, which are too 
rarely met with among professed antiqua- 
rians for me ever to forget them. 

There is another cabinet of monuments, 
busts, lamps, and vases ; and there is one 
expressly set apart for Egyptian antiqui- 
ties ; but neither of these last are very rich 
in their contents. 

The Imperial Gallery of Pictures at the 
Belvedere Palace is large, and contains 
many fine paintings ; some Rubens, of a 

s 2 



260 VIENNA. 

vast size, and several, by other masters of 
name, that were taken from the sup- 
pressed convents, in the time of the Em- 
peror Joseph II. 

The Gallery of Prince Lichtenstein is 
uncommonly rich, especially in the works 
of Rubens ; and in this palace is the noblest 
hall in Vienna. 

The Arsenal is well deserving a visit. 
The wide corridors, where the arms are 
brilliantly and fancifully disposed, run 
round a square court, where hangs a mas- 
sive chain, with which the Turk, during 
his memorable siege, shut up the navi- 
gation of the Danube. In the saloons 
there are many Turkish arms, and the 
head of the vizier Kara Mustapha, who 
commanded at the last siege, is preserved 
among them. There are also many antique 
arms, and many figures in fine suits of an- 
cient armour; round some of these the 
glorious old swords were girt with belts of 
bright blue, or other gaudy-coloured ri- 
bands, with silver or gilt fringes, fresh from 
the shop of some stage-milliner in the 
Graben. I could not keep silence at the 

13 



VIENNA. 261 

absurdity and impropriety of this ; I was 
provoked ; it destroyed all illusion, and 
offended the taste so grossly, I cannot un- 
derstand how it can have been permitted. 
I let out upon the subject with such good- 
humoured enthusiasm, and this before a 
large party of Germans, who so cordially 
agreed with me, that the conductor looked 
vexed, and ashamed, — I hope sufficiently 
so to report it where the error may be recti- 
fied. The Germans, as a people, love to 
escape in thought from the present to the 
past ; they are ever ready to revert to those 
periods of time which are so richly coloured 
by the hues of romance, and which shine 
bright with the deeds of chivalry. Not 
far from Vienna the Emperor himself has 
a costly toy exhibiting this taste very 
strongly ; it is called the Knight's Castle, 
and has been erected with great care and 
keeping, after the model of some ancient 
baronial castle ; moat, drawbridge, port- 
cullis, arched gateway, court, hall, chapel, 
chambers, dungeons, walls, passages, gal- 
leries, communications, turrets, — all cor- 
rectly designed and fitted. The apart- 

s 3 



262 VIENNA. 

ments have old ceilings, old wainscottings, 
that have been purchased at a great ex- 
pence ; old furniture, old pictures, ancient 
armour, ancient manuscripts, and illumi- 
nated missals ; and, preserved in glass 
cases, many most valuable curiosities, — 
goblets, vases, dishes, trinkets, toys, — all 
of the middle ages, and of rare costliness. 

At a little distance from the castle he 
has a tilting-ground, with regular lists for 
the joust and tournament. Once or twice 
they have held mock tourneys here for his 
amusement. Methinks, if the grim Al- 
brechts and Rodolphs of other days could 
look out of their graves, they could not 
choose but smile at their descendants. 

This taste obtains among the people. I 
saw, while I was in Vienna, two pieces, 
one in their Opera-house, entitled " The 
Prince of Bavaria ;" the other at the court 
theatre, called " The Fortunes and Death 
of King Ottocar." In the former, which 
was a fine pageant, it was surprising with 
what minute attention all the suits of 
armour had been prepared ; nothing could 
be more perfect than the illusion. The 



VIENNA. 263 

prince was personated by a fine handsome 
young man, with fair shining hair ; and 
when he stood unhelmed beside the lady of 
his love, wooing her, it was a fine picture. 
In one part they introduced twenty knights 
on horseback, and gave a scene a little too 
Astley-like, but exceedingly well done. In 
the latter piece, which is a tragedy, but 
I should judge a heavy one, there is much 
of the like show, and really (armour, beard, 
and build, all considered,) the fierce Otto- 
car seemed to live again in the person of 
his representative. But, speaking of the 
theatre in Vienna, I must forget things 
like these. I went repeatedly to the court 
theatre, where, alone, the true drama 
is given, and I was alike surprised and 
delighted. I was fortunate enough to be 
present at the representation of the " Death 
of Wallenstein." Although I sent early to 
secure a seat, and went early that I might 
reach it without inconvenience, I could only 
get a seat in the last row but one of the 
parterre, and the theatre was crowded. 

I have before said that I am ignorant of 
the German language ; but, by translation 
and analysis, I was well acquainted with 

s 4 



264 VIENNA. 

the tragedy of Wallenstein ; I could fol- 
low and feel all through. I made no effort 
to construe, as it were, but let the words 
fall on my ear ; and, if it caught the sense, 
well; if not, the picture and the move- 
ment, the look and the tone, were enough 
for me. The effect of German acting — at 
least of such acting as this — is wonderful : 
it has a character of nature in it that is 
never lost sight of; the walk, the turn, the 
entrance, the exit ; the rising, sitting, using 
the hand, ungirding of a sword, adjusting 
of apparel, all deliberate, without being 
affectedly slow ; and the tones ever vary- 
ing, as they do, according to what is said 
and felt among persons of the like class in 
actual life. The actor who performed Wal- 
lenstein never once gave you the idea of a 
man that had learned the words of a part, 
and uttered them before; and when, at 
the close, after the finest possible exhi- 
bition of a silent, superstitious, thoughtful 
frame of mind, he passes down the stage to 
his sleeping-chamber, you feel a stamp of 
reality about it all, — as if you alone had 
been permitted to listen to the words of 
this being, and to see him thus,-— as if 



VIENNA; 



265 



they never could be uttered, he never looked 
upon, again. The character of Thecla was 
admirably filled : the taste would have de- 
sired for her a more beautiful face and 
form, though she was not plain ; but the 
eye, as it followed her movements, was sa- 
tisfied ; the ear, as it listened to the soft 
and loving tones of a voice sweeter than 
any song, was ravished. The celebrated 
scene in this tragedy where Thecla, having 
demanded an interview with the officer 
who brings to her father the intelligence of 
her lover's fate, asks for and listens to the 
detail of his honourable daring, and me- 
lancholy death, is a situation as nobly con- 
ceived, and as effective, as any in the whole 
range of the drama. The audience, but 
for coursing tears and bursting sighs, were 
mute. Women were in every box ; and in 
the body of the theatre stood a crowd of 
manly and bronzed officers. 

I must not be told * that the German 



* " An Autumn near the Rhine," page 382. — a book 
by some gentleman of undoubted talent, who has not 
treated this subject quite fairly. I am an enemy, though 
an humble one, to all sweeping and indiscriminate censure. 



9,66 VIENNA. 

language is " at once monotonous and 
vulgar ;" that " there is no nobleness in its 
passion ;" that the poet's lines, " in the 
mouths of the best actors, have a muddy, 
murmuring harshness ;" that " there is, in 
fact, a prosaic meanness in the sound of the 
language ;" and that the style of acting of 
a German is " without even dignity and 
chaste energy." I must not be told this ; 
because these happen to be just the points 
on which any Englishman with an eye, an 
ear, and a memory of the best models on 
his own stage, may form a judgment and 
pass an opinion. There is another thing 
I am sorry to have been told, by a gentle- 
man of no common talent, no common 
observation, and whose three years' resi- 
dence in Germany, together with the gene- 
rally admitted ability of his book, give him 
a most superior claim to attention, and 
cause him to be quoted, indeed, as an un- 
answerable authority, on almost every sub- 
ject (except her literature) connected with 
Germany*, — namely, "that there cannot 
be a more dissolute city than Vienna, — 

# JRussePs Tour. 



VIENNA. 267 

one where female virtue is less prized, and, 
therefore, less frequent." I must say, that 
I think his judgment is, to say the least of 
it, very harsh, and very hastily pronounced, 
Vienna is a capital and a garrison. The 
citizens, although every shop is filled with 
proofs of their industry and ingenuity, are 
great lovers of pleasure ; they like to sit 
under the shade of trees and awnings, 
when they can ; they like to eat and drink 
of the good things which their country 
furnishes in abundance ; they like the 
sound of music ; and they like to crowd 
into a ball-room for a dance ; — all this they 
like ; and it is strictly true with them, as 
elsewhere, that they are lovers of pleasure 
rather than lovers of God. That is a very 
serious and a very affecting consideration, 
as it regards mankind at large; but the 
question is not one that I wish to treat 
here as a mourning moralist, but simply as 
a traveller, as an observer of my fellow- 
creatures. And I can only form my 
own opinions from the eye, and these 
gathered during a very short stay, and from 
what may appear, to many of my readers, 



268 VIENNA. 

very trifling and inconsequent circum- 
stances. 

In the first place, before eleven o'clock 
at night the city is in profound repose : not 
a female is to be seen in the streets. A so- 
litary figure may still stand at the doorway 
in the alleys near the Graben, or a shiver- 
ing wretch still loiter on the ramparts near 
the guard-houses, — but there is no impu- 
dent soliciting of the passenger, there are no 
loud voices in the thoroughfares, there is 
no sound of revel from the windows. By day 
there is no display or indecency of dress or 
manner in public places, no staring, no 
turning of the head, no open interchange 
of glances, no evident assignation-making. 

In the Prater, the gardens, the squares, 
and promenades, and in the theatres, no- 
thing can be more quietly and naturally 
cheerful than the manners of the citizens' 
wives and their daughters. The neatness 
and care with which boys, girls, and chil- 
dren of the tenderest ages, are dressed, and 
their smiling and happy appearance, would 
lead the gazer to the very natural conclu- 
sion — that their parents loved them, and 



VIENNA. 269 

each other. That in Vienna the wealthy 
profligate may purchase the favours of needy 
and corrupted beauty, — and this, too, where 
the female has family-duties that she vio- 
lates, and passes in the scale of society 
above the open, but more virtuous, though 
more wretched prostitutes, — I have no 
doubt; but that a total want of principle is 
so universally diffused among the wives and 
daughters of citizens in comfortable and 
affluent circumstances, that to increase the 
means of their extravagance they are ever 
ready to sacrifice themselves to a worthless 
purchaser, I certainly am not disposed to 
believe. 

That in a city where all dance, the aban- 
doned should dance also, and that there 
should be ball-rooms in which gentlemen 
are admitted for sixpence, and females free, 
does not, I confess, surprise me any more 
than the existence of many places of resort 
both in Paris and London, where I doubt 
if the meetings are for purer purposes, and 
where, as in Vienna, they are confined to 
the very lowest classes. Travellers who know 
Paris, and Naples, and Venice, may bear 



270 VIENNA. 

with, however they may deplore, the dis- 
sipation of the citizens of Vienna ; and it 
would be well, if, in judging of foreign 
countries, we Englishmen kept present in 
our minds the exact scenes which our own 
metropolis would exhibit tcthe eye of a 
foreigner ; and how rash would be his con- 
demnation of us, as a body, if he formed 
his opinions from our theatres, our streets, 
our Vauxhall, our tea-gardens on a Sunday 
evening, or from the various lodging- 
houses in the vicinity of Leicester-Square, 
where foreigners are often made to fancy 
themselves for the first few days in respect- 
able private lodgings, — to say nothing of 
the picture that square must present to him 
every hour. 

With regard to the people of Vienna, 
they are politically degraded : they are not 
allowed to speak, and they cannot be ex- 
pected to think, like independent men. 
But I believe them in their families to be 
an honest, affectionate, cheerful race, al- 
ways ready to make holy day, happy in 
seeing their wives and children partakers 
of their pleasures, and in no feature of 



VIENNA. 271 

their character more remarkable than in 
their frank and obliging deportment to the 
stranger. 

I recollect not to have seen a beggar in 
Vienna. The benevolent institutions are 
numerous ; the government interests itself 
greatly in the conduct of them, and the 
citizens pay cheerfully to support them. 
There are also many associations among the 
inhabitants for securing pensions to them- 
selves in the season of sickness, and in the 
decline of life. There are not less than ten of 
these, of different classes. In short, although 
the good people eat and drink, and make 
their souls enjoy the good of their labour, 
they do certainly never forget to show 
some sort of gratitude to God, by the free 
exercise of love and charity towards their 
fellow-creatures. Their loyalty is excessive ; 
the word Kaiser is ever in the mouth, whe- 
ther they talk, or sing ; and, strange as it 
may sound, there certainly is, in this most 
despotic of all governments, such a paternal 
mildness, a justice, a wisdom in the ad- 
ministration of the laws, and in the moral 
rule over the people, that crimes are not 



272 VIENNA. 

Very frequent, and capital punishments very 
rarely inflicted. 

I saw the garrison under arms, with 
laurels in their caps, on the anniversary of 
the battle of Leipsic. The Hungarian gre- 
nadiers are remarkably fine men. They 
have not that smartness under arms which 
the Prussians have, nor have they that ani- 
mated intelligence of look which marked 
the old Imperial Guard of France. But 
they are very warlike ; their stature tall, 
their limbs large, their complexions brown, 
their uniform white, the cap of sable fur, 
the pantaloon of a pale Hungarian blue ; 
they are slow and steady in every move- 
ment ; and, even as they marched at ease 
to the ground, I observed that none ever 
smiled. I cannot conceive these men flying 
in battle ; I doubt if they ever have been 
driven, — they have stood, and died where 
they stood. The regiment of Austrian gre- 
nadiers which paraded by their side was a 
very fine body of men, but greatly inferior 
to the Hungarians. A squadron of Hun* 
garian hussars disappointed me. We have 
no cavalry-general that would not have 



VIENNA. 273 

ordered them off the ground, their turn- 
out was so wretched ; but they ride beau- 
tifully, and look bitter, and ready for the 
melee. That, however, does not excuse 
such neglect of cleanliness as would be 
discreditable to recruits ; and, to make all 
worse, their clothing was old and worn 
out. Some of the young officers were most 
brilliant in their appearance, and made 
those demi-voltes in air which the Hun 
should make. The finest cavalry I saw in 
Austria, although there were none on the 
ground this day, are the cuirassiers. The 
white dress, the black cuirass, the scaled 
helmet, the high boot, the long sword, and 
the broad, brave, clean-looking dragoons 
themselves, and their strong and well- 
conditioned horses, I shall long remember. 
The dress of the Austrian artillery is pain- 
fully unmartial, but the men, taken as a 
body, are, perhaps, as fine-looking soldiers 
as any nation can boast. Their uniform is 
a rhubarb-coloured drab jacket, of a long 
awkward shape, with red cuff and collar, 
and they wear a round hat, with the flap on 
one side looped up, and a dark feather. The 



274 VIENNA. 

conduct of these men wherever I saw them 
appeared to me most excellent. There 
are many peculiarities in costume in the 
Austrian army, which, till the eye is familiar 
with them, offend the taste. Their generals, 
for example, are distinguished by red 
breeches. Now, inexpressibles of this 
colour are so closely associated in the mind 
of an Englishman with those liveries, which 
many servants will not even engage to wear, 
but in which the fat servants of some old 
families must still be content to appear, 
that we really cannot keep our counte- 
nances, or look upon these worthy leaders 
with the grave respect which is their 
due. The Austrian army is certainly a 
very fine one ; and again, as among the 
Prussians, the stranger asks himself, how 
came the French so continually to defeat 
them ? it must have astonished the French 
themselves. The Austrian officer, who dis- 
charges his duty with zeal and intrepidity, 
may nevertheless linger away a life without 
distinction : here, perhaps, is one reason. 
Yet, when we reflect how nobly on many 
occasions the troops of Austria have be- 
haved, although so few incentives are 



VIENNA. 275 

furnished to their ambition, we must feel 
increased respect for the character of the 
Austrian soldiery. There is a peculiar 
love to the profession of arms common, 
in a greater or less degree, to all Ger- 
mans, both north and south. They love 
the steed and the sabre, the rifle and the 
powder-horn. They love the sound of 
the trumpet and the echo of the bugle. 
They like that strange uncertainty of life 
which takes away all anxious care about 
any other provision than for the passing 
day. They delight in the excitement of 
the march ; and, if the pipe, and the flute, 
and the pencil, are in their tent, they feel 
the camp a home. As lovers, too, they 
object not to that hurried life which 
strengthens and refines a virtuous attach- 
ment, making the object of it a vision sweet 
and sacred for those lonely hours which, 
even amid the tumults of a campaign, the 
soldier can always command. 

Baden very greatly disappointed me. It 
is a poor place, and not to be compared 
with any other watering place in Germany 
which I saw. 

t 2 



276 VIENNA. 

The season was indeed gone by ; still it 
was evident to me what, even filled with 
company, Baden would be. 1 visited the 
baths, and to my astonishment saw persons 
of both sexes in the bath together, and 
moving about up to their necks in the 
steaming water. A lady with the unwetted 
curls of a handsome head carefully dressed 
was of the party, and a fat old gentleman, 
who, his face alone appearing above the 
water, looked like a red and rising moon. 
This practice seems, and is indecent ; al- 
though custom has apparently so reconciled 
visitors to it, that they walk about in the 
water as grave, as calm, as unconcerned, 
as if they were promenading in a garden. 
The bathing dresses are large, long, and 
fastened high up on the neck. 

There is a miserable square, not larger 
than a prison-yard, with a few small trees 
in it, in the very heart of the town, that 
they call The Park, and a painted wooden 
building, unworthy the poorest guinguette 
near Paris, styled with great pomp in the 
guide-books the Eastern Pavilion. Not 
far, however, from Baden is a narrow defile 
with wood and water, and high o'erhanging 



VIENNA. 277 

rocks, and ruined castles on their summits, 
called the Valley of St. Helena. Hither 
the Germans, who have the true pic-nic 
taste, and just the temper and talents to 
make such a thing pass off agreeably, resort 
during the season in great numbers. At 
the mouth of this valley is a private palace 
belonging to the Archduke Charles, which 
will charm every English visitor. It is 
beautifully fitted up ; that is, every article 
of furniture, every colour, whether of cur- 
tains, draperies, paper, or carpets, will be 
found in a taste quiet, chaste, like the pri- 
vate gentleman. In the possession of rank, 
renown, and fortune ; of things yet better 
than these, of an attached wife and sweet 
children, he seems, as by good fortune, 
to have escaped the crown and the palace, 
the council and the camp, and to have 
found what, it is probable, even when he 
led, and gloriously led, the armies of Aus- 
tria, he most coveted, — a home, a family, 
and repose. 

He is universally represented as a man 
very domestic and home-loving, and simple 
and unassuming in his manners. It is a 

t 3 



278 VIENNA. 

remarkable thing, that in Austria, where 
kings and princes certainly possess power 
the most despotic, their carriage and bear- 
ing among their subjects should be, as it 
universally is represented to be, plain, quiet, 
and even yielding. No escorts ever drive 
you out of their way. The fiacre will cut in 
before the Imperial carriage, and in the long 
line on the Prater the citizen in his hack- 
ney, the traveller in his job, the noble and 
the prince of the Imperial family with their 
splendid equipages take their place in file, 
and roll along undistinguished in the same 
crowd. It is not the etiquette to uncover to 
them ; and I was told that the English visi- 
tors at Vienna were remarked as being almost 
the only strangers who saluted them. It is 
the natural impulse of a gentleman to bow 
to the members of a royal family. However, 
I suspect, a good many of my countrymen's 
bows here (could I have seen them) were 
given in a manner that might have been 
translated into " Look at me; I am an 
Englishman, I am a free man. I have made 
you a bow, and you ought to be, as doubt- 
less you are, struck by my politeness, and 



VIENNA. 279 

flattered by my condescension. My bow is 
in real value equal to the united kotou of 
all these slaves in the Prater, who, to my 
astonishment, never bow at all, — one rea- 
son why I do." 

You may easily discover from the man- 
ners of all the servants, guards, and order- 
lies about the royal gardens and palaces 
near Vienna, that the Emperor is as glad to 
forget the iron sceptre, which, guarded by 
his ministers, himself is a slave to, as the 
humblest citizen that walks the gardens of 
Schoenbrunn. 

The palace of Schoenbrunn is a hand- 
some, cheerful residence; its halls, stair- 
cases, and apartments, spacious and noble. 
The gardens are very beautiful, and well 
laid out. There is a fine ornamental build- 
ing in them, called the Gloriette. It is a 
stately pillared portico, open, with a saloon 
above, and a terrace on the roof: it shines 
afar, and is seen many miles distant. 

The spot in the garden that most in- 
terested me was a small plot of enclosed 
ground, which is tilled, and looked after, 
by young Napoleon, who generally resides 

t 4 



280 VIENNA. 

with his governor in this palace. I natu- 
rally looked in the garden of a boy for 
flowers and plants, but his fancy has been 
for the growing of potatoes. His amuse- 
ment, the gardener told me, was to try if he 
could not so train the tops of the plant as 
to dispose them into some beauty, and that 
when he dug his crop, he carried his pota- 
toes as a present, of his own rearing, for the 
table of the Emperor his grandfather, who 
is represented as being very fond of him. 
All persons about the palace spoke of the 
youth with evident attachment. I visited 
his apartments, they were plainly furnished, 
and his escritoire bore marks of its belong- 
ing to a young task-writing student. I 
saw also in this same palace the small se- 
cluded cabinet occupied by Napoleon him- 
self, where, as the old servant, who, together 
with his own domestics, was in waiting on 
him during his stay at Schoenbrunn, told 
me, he was wont to read and write for 
hours alone, and where he is said first to 
have seen the portrait of Maria Louisa, 
whom he afterwards demanded for his 
bride. 



VIENNA. 281 

There are several drawings in this ca- 
binet which hung in it at that time, and 
hang there still. They are executed by 
different princesses of the Austrian Im- 
perial family, giving proof that they were 
quiet in their tastes and pursuits ; and they 
must have reproved the conqueror every 
time he looked on them, for driving away 
so happy a family from their favourite 
residence. 

Almost all the time that I was at Vienna 
young Napoleon was staying in the neigh- 
bourhood of Presburg with the Emperor, 
and I sadly feared that I should have no 
opportunity of seeing him. He came in, 
however, to the palace in the city for two 
or three days ; and, before his return, an 
event occurred, which, as it caused him to 
appear on a public occasion, enabled me to 
see him under circumstances, to my cast 
of thought, peculiarly interesting. News 
arrived in the capital that the worthy King 
of Bavaria had died most suddenly. The 
usual orders were immediately given for 
performing funeral ceremonies, in honour 
of his memory, in the private chapel of 



282 VIENNA. 

the palace. The young Napoleon and a 
brother of the Emperor, being the only 
members of the Imperial family present in 
the city, assisted at these honours. There 
was a vigil service the first evening, and 
a grand mass and requiem on the morrow. 
I was present at both ; the court only at 
the first. 

In the centre of the chapel a kingly 
crown and a ducal cap lay glittering upon a 
black pall, which covered a raised (pageant) 
bier. Innumerable tall and massive church 
candlesticks, of silver, were ranged around 
the bier ; and the thick pale torches shed 
on it their white and sickly rays. A row 
of priests stood, with their clasped hands 
pointed in prayer, on one side; a rank 
of the life or palace guards, in scarlet 
clothing, leaned upon their halberts on that 
opposite. At the head of the bier, some 
twenty officers of the Hungarian grena- 
diers, and two or three hussar officers, who 
accompanied the commander of the gar- 
rison, stood closely grouped. A few per- 
sons of distinction sat in private pews, in 
a gallery above, that have glass windows 



VIENNA. 283 

looking down into the chapel. Among 
these, in a pew by himself, next that of 
the Emperor's brother, was the young 
Napoleon. He leaned from the open win- 
dow during the service : his complexion is 
very fair, his forehead good, the lower part 
of his face short and rounded ; his nose 
not very prominent, but well-shaped. The 
colour of his eyes I could not distinguish, 
and, except for moments, saw him only in 
profile ; but he impresses you as a very 
good-looking, gentleman-like boy, with an 
appearance and manner somewhat beyond 
his age. His hands were clasped together, 
and he seemed to take that feeling interest 
in the scene, which is alike natural and 
becoming in a youth of fifteen. The so- 
lemnity of the service, and the sweetness 
of the singing, were, perhaps, the only 
things that moved or occupied his young 
mind; and yet it is more than probable 
that he would know, and might, at such a 
moment, have remembered, that, but for 
his father, these obsequies might have been 
electoral, and not regal ; that the kingly 
crown upon that bier was the gift of that 



284 VIENNA. 

father, when he decreed that the Elector 
of Bavaria should wear one. The regal 
honours and powers which he had bestowed 
had outlived his own, even in life; and 
in death he himself had lain down in the 
grave of an exile. The son might remem- 
ber, that no such requiem was sung over 
the distant tomb of that father ; but that 
the enemies who had guarded him living, 
and who could not deny him the funeral of 
a soldier, guarded him dead. All this he 
might remember, and might secretly vow 
to see his father's bones yet deposited in 
a fitting sepulchre. I admit, however, that 
all this is not very probable ; for I learn 
that he is bred up in a particularly quiet 
way, is little on horseback, and seldom or 
ever seen among the troops, or encouraged 
in anv martial tastes. Circumstance, how- 
ever, brings about strange and miraculous 
changes in, or rather developements of, 
human character ; and the stirring trumpet 
may yet sound, which shall awake in the bo- 
som of this youth the stern and ambitious 
spirit of his father. - 

All the associations of thought which 



VIENNA. 285 

crowded into my mind were naturally cal- 
culated to increase the interest of the scene. 
There was something inexpressibly affect- 
ing in the whole picture. A jewelled crown 
upon a black pall ! How mournfully it glit- 
ters ! — it seems to tremble ! The meanest 
beggar present looks on it with no envy 
in such company. There is a something, 
too, in these ceremonies for the dead, to 
me, very melancholy and grand, arising 
from the mere circumstance of the age and 
fashion of the huge and massive candle- 
sticks that stand, in gleaming rows, around 
the bier, and that have assisted, on like 
solemn occasions, for so many centuries. I 
thought upon the rude hunting-lodge on 
the lone lake of Berchtolsgaden ; and I 
pitied, — though it may sound wrong, — I 
pitied the poor king, to have perished 
out of so still and sweet a possession. It 
was strange, too, to look upon soldiers of 
Austria, who had so often seen the armies 
of Bavaria arrayed against them in the 
field, paying these honours to the memory 
of Bavaria's king ; and unsatingly delight- 
ful to see the child of the mightiest and 



286 PRESBURG. 

most wonderful conqueror of our age kneel- 
ing in prayer, with a heart, perhaps, ten- 
der as his young fair cheek. This day 
alone would have rewarded my journey 
from England; but I had yet another scene 
of interest in reserve : I was determined to 
pass one day at Presburg, for the chance of 
being present at a sitting of the Hungarian 
Deputies. 

The distance from Vienna to Presburg 
is only forty English miles, and a most 
excellent eilwagen traverses it in little 
more than five hours. The first night I 
could not get a bed, the town was so full ; 
but they gave me as good a shake-down in 
one of the numerous supper-rooms as they 
could contrive. I took my supper, how- 
ever, in the large salle, which was crowded 
with the same sort of figures you meet in 
all the coffee-houses of Vienna : a loud 
band at the door, and loud voices in the 
salle, struggled for the mastery ; and I was 
not sorry to escape soon from both to my 
paillasse. Here, amid the expiring fumes 
of spilled wine of Ofen, and pipe-ashes, 
near a table with the gravy-stained cloth 



PRESBURG. 287 

yet on it, and the empty salad-bowl by its 
side, I fell sound asleep. My domestique 
de place, a most active and intelligent man, 
whom I brought with me from Vienna, 
had watched the earliest departure, and, 
by seven o'clock the following morning, 
I was transferred to a clean, comfortable 
bed-chamber. It is but forty miles from 
Vienna to Presburg ; but if the traveller 
will only walk, at an early hour, to the 
large upper market, he may fancy him- 
self four hundred from any spot so civil- 
ised. There is an abundant supply of 
provisions of all sorts ; but they are all 
clumsily and coarsely displayed; there is 
no attempt at disposing them to advantage, 
or invitingly : the women behind the heaps, 
or stalls, are ill clad, masculine, and un- 
clean. The Hungarian peasant has a thick, 
stout, bluejacket, a strong, heavy, shapeless 
boot, uncombed hair, and a broad-brimmed 
hat with a low rounded crown. Mixed 
with these, in very large numbers, are the 
Sclavonian peasants ; and, not the least 
remarkable feature in the scene, on a wide 
dusty space near the market stand some 



288 PRESBURG. 

hundreds of rude waggons, drawn by small 
wild-looking horses. It is impossible that, 
in the day when the Roman made war in 
Illyria, the Sclavonian peasant could have 
been in garb, in aspect, in manners, more 
completely the barbarian than to the eye 
he still seems ; nor could the waggon in a 
Scythian camp have been a ruder thing 
than any of those still crowded together in 
the markets at Presburg. I observed one 
of the Sclavonians, a very old man, with 
grey hairs, which hung, nevertheless, as 
lank, and waved as wild as the blackest, 
buying food at a stall where they sold pro- 
visions ready dressed. He handled a dozen 
different pieces of meat or poultry, and, at 
last, carried off the quarter of a large coarse 
goose, to tear it, doglike, in a corner. 

The man who does not feel sorrow when 
he sees fellow-creatures thus degraded, — 
who does not feel humbled himself at the 
sight, — who does not wish to see their 
moral and political condition improved, i — 
and to see the blessings of civil and re- 
ligious liberty widely diffused throughout 
the world, — is a man I pity. " Pshaw !" 



PRESBURG. 289 

says a man of the world, " it is their lot, 
their condition, my good Sir. They are 
very well off, and very happy. Did not 
you see that old fellow with the leg of 
a goose ? what would you have ? And 
here again, as I live, there are a dozen or 
two of these wretched Sclavonians of yours 
dancing, — as I live, dancing!" — Yes, they 
dance ! When a few paltry pence were 
given them, at the door of an hotel, for 
some labour they had performed, they 
danced, shook their matted locks, and lifted 
their heavy feet, and showed their white 
teeth, and sung something too wild to be 
called a song ! 

It is not exactly in passing from a scene 
like this that the traveller is prepared to be 
very much enraptured with the free Diet 
of Hungary. In the hall, however, of the 
Hungarian deputies, it is impossible not 
to feel a momentary delight, the picture is 
so new and so startling. I sat in the gal- 
lery, whither I went at an early hour ; but 
it was filled to suffocation before the mem- 
bers took their seats. 

u 



290 PRESBURG. 

The hall is nothing remarkable, merely 
a long, lofty chamber. A chair is raised 
on a step at the upper end, for the presi- 
dent. Tables run the whole length of the 
hall, covered with green cloth, and sup- 
plied abundantly with materials for writing. 
Immediately below, and to the right of the 
president, sat such bishops and dignitaries 
of the church as have seats in this assembly. 
The rest of the members, and there ap- 
peared to be more than three hundred pre- 
sent, wore the national dress of Hungary. 
It consists of a hussar jacket and panta- 
loon, of brown cloth, and a hussar boot. 
The ornaments are of black silk lace, 
plain, warlike, and becoming. A very few, 
indeed, were sheeted in gold lace, and a 
few more wore a tassel of gold bullion on 
the boot, and a gold cord fastening the 
pelisse. The reason of this difference I 
learned to be, that some were actually in 
the military service ; and the tassel and 
cord of others were little vain additions, 
which men dandified by residence in Vi- 
enna had ventured to assume: but nothing 



PRESBURG. 291 

could be more plain, or in better taste, than 
the costume of the many. There was a 
spur on every heel, a sword on every 
thigh, and by the side of every man, on the 
table at which he sat, stood the kalpac, 
with its rich brown fur, and that falling top 
of crimson cloth, which, when, in former 
times, the Hungarian galloped to the field, 
flew bravely in the wind, giving life and 
menace to his motion. It is impossible to 
gaze down without interest on this belted 
assembly, the descendants of a race of war- 
riors ever ready to leap into their saddles, — 
in fact, the vanguard of Europe against the 
Turk. 

I cordially hate the Turk, not because 
he is a Mahometan ; I am not so wretched 
or so narrow-minded a Christian as that ; 
but because all of him that is not slave is ty- 
rant ; because he would (if he could) bring 
back upon the earth a moral darkness. 

I must admit, indeed, that the Hun- 
garian has something of the tyrant in him, 
— a haughtiness gotten centuries ago, on 
horseback ; and that he has, in his day, 
lorded it among his vassals, as did the barons 

u 2 



292 PRESBURG. 

of our own country (blessings on their me- 
mory, nevertheless !) in the days of King 
John : but when we reflect that the nobles 
and privileged classes of Hungary form, at 
least, a twentieth part of her population ; 
that, upon the whole, that population has 
generally been found attached to them ; 
and that the Diet of Hungary has often 
resisted and defied the crown of Austria, 
we cannot say that it is composed of slaves. 
No longer, indeed, can they be said to 
defy the crown ; and in the consciousness, 
perhaps, that they have sunk nearer to the 
people, so they feel more with them, and 
raise their voices more loudly for them. 

The debate was carried on in Latin : 
numbers spoke, and, in general, they had a 
ready and fluent command of language, and 
a very animated and manly delivery. Few 
of their speeches were more than ten 
minutes in length, and the greater part still 
shorter. It is true that, as it has seldom 
fallen to my lot to hear Latin spoken since, 
as a youth, I listened to declamations, I 
cannot pretend to speak to the classical 
correctness of expressions, or the con- 



PRESBURG. 293 

struction of sentences ; but thus far I can 
say, it was not a bald, meagre, thin La- 
tin ; and many of the sentences fell richly 
rounded on my ear. There was one church- 
man, an abbot (I think), who spoke rapidly, 
bitterly, and very well ; and there was an 
elderly deputy with grey hairs, who replied 
to him most eloquently, with a fire and 
a freedom that surprised me. I could not 
get fully at the subject, but it was some 
question connected with a tax that had 
been imposed, under the late viceroy, on 
salt, and that was felt and complained of 
by the people. This fine old Hungarian, 
in the course of his speech, dwelt proudly 
upon the ancient privileges of his country, 
and complained that the spirit of them had 
been greatly invaded during the late lieu- 
tenancy. His loyal expressions towards 
the person and family of the Emperor were 
warm, and seemed to be sincere; but he 
returned, quite as bitterly, to his attack on 
the measure on which he sought to impeach 
the minister ; and, in one part, where he 
was more particularly pleading the cause of 
the people, he cried out, with animation, 

u 3 



294 PRESBURG. 

" Vox populi, Vox Dei /" It electrified the 
whole assembly. There were many loud 
" Vivats /" not only among the deputies 
themselves, but also from almost all the 
persons in the gallery* 

For a brief moment I might have fan- 
cied myself in a free assembly, but the 
calm, complacent smile upon the features 
of a keen-looking president, who is the 
representative of the crown, reminded me 
that there was a bridle upon the Hunga- 
rian steed, and, although he is suffered to 
prance loftily in pride and beauty, and to 
fancy as he gallops that he is running far 
and away, his rider sits laughingly at ease 
in the saddle, and knows better. 

The illusion is still more completely dis- 
sipated at the doors of this assembly ; no 
fiery horses stand saddled and neighing for 
their masters, but a long row of mean open 
carriages, each, however, with a hussar be- 
hind them* wait tamely in the street, and 
such of the spurred members as have one 
get slowly into it, loll indolently back, and 
are driven to their lodgings. This, it will 
be observed, was a meeting of the Second 



PRESBURG. 295 

Chamber ; a holding of the full Diet, 
where the Magnates attend, I was not for- 
tunate enough to see, and I am still left, 
in spite of all descriptions, a little in doubt 
as to the picture it would actually present: 
magnificent it may be, yet, methinks, judg- 
ing from what I did see, the splendour has 
been somewhat exaggerated — that of the 
Guard Noble undoubtedly is, They have 
good, but not remarkable horses. The 
hussar dress of scarlet and silver is rich and 
dazzling; and, as they ride down to mount 
guard, to see them followed by a train of 
orderlies mounted, and with led horses, 
(although the pelisses of these orderlies 
were old, and of rusty green, and the horses 
might have been turned out in higher 
order,) has an appearance somewhat im- 
posing. But the young men composing 
this corps differ in size, figure, and carriage, 
and scarce look like soldiers by the side of 
the old Austrian cuirassiers. A regiment 
of these last lay in garrison here, and some 
strong battalions of infantry, consisting en- 
tirely of men from the Italian provinces of 
the empire. So much for the Houses of 

u 4 



296 



PRESBURG. 



Lords and Commons at Presburg, and for 
the chance of free discussion in the king- 
dom of Hungary. 

The theatre was crowded in the evening, 
well lighted, and the company well dressed, 
and looking sufficiently brilliant. There 
was also a circus open for the exhibition of 
horsemanship : the performers were from 
Cracow. I looked in, and saw not a shade 
of difference in their exhibitions from those 
given at Astley*s. 

The town of Presburg is not at all re- 
markable either in its buildings or streets ; 
the suburbs are open, cheerful, and far 
cleaner. The Danube rolls past of a noble 
width, and the skeleton of a square castle, 
once stately from its size, and the loftiness 
of its site, still crowns the hill above the 
city. 

The church where the coronation takes 
place is not large, or handsome ; but over 
the grand altar is a fine equestrian statue 
of St. Martin, who is represented, while his 
horse is prancing to the rein, dividing his 
cloak with a sabre, according to the legend. 
It forms a most appropriate altar-piece, in 



PRESBURG. 297 

reference to those days, when Hungary was 
a kingdom of warriors on horseback. Per- 
haps the most interesting feature about 
Presburg was the presence of so many old 
Hungarian nobles of the second class, from 
the country and the upper provinces. 
Their grave and staid appearance, the fe- 
males of their families in unfashionable 
dresses, and the rough old hussars in their 
service, whose pelisses, like their masters, 
looked old enough to have seen and battled 
against the Turk, gave me, especially one 
family, a picture I should despair of de- 
scribing. 

One youthful and gentlemanlike-looking 
man, who must have often ridden in Hyde 
Park, by his dress, his horse, and the quiet- 
ness of his manner, and style of riding, fol- 
lowed, though in plain clothes, by his 
hussar, and who looked hard at me, with a 
great, and civil, but hesitating anxiety, as 
though he would wish to speak, yet knew 
not exactly why, I guessed to be some 
young Hungarian of birth, who had been 
attached to the Austrian embassy in Lon- 
don. Another, an older man, polite, and 



298 PRESBURG. 

speaking English very well, leaned over 
from his box at the theatre, entered agree- 
ably and freely into conversation, and pro- 
mised me an invitation to a grand ball, at 
which all the Magnates were to be pre- 
sent, a few days afterwards. This kind- 
ness I could not avail myself of; I was 
pressed for time, and returned to Vienna 
on the morrow. 

As I approached Vienna, on my return 
from Presburg, rolling rapidly along a com- 
modious road in a neat, well-varnished, 
well-padded eilwagen, it was strange to re- 
flect, that, little more than a century ago, 
" Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman," were 
skirmishing over the plains around, that 
janisaries lay encamped on the beautiful 
banks of the Danube, and the camel of 
Arabia was planting his spongy foot in my 
present track. 

I am sure, to look into the Prater of Vi- 
enna, the Turk seems to have as little 
business near it as near Hyde Park, or 
Kensington Gardens ; yet, so it was yester- 
day, — a mere yesterday, in the records of 
history. At that memorable period a few 



VIENNA. 299 

discontented and haughty nobles of Hun- 
gary made them feel, throughout Austria, 
the full value of the services which the 
Hungarian had so often rendered them 
against the Ottoman, by forgetting their 
duty as Christians, and their fidelity as 
subjects. Will it ever recur, that hateful 
sight, — the Crescent glittering before the 
walls of Vienna ? Would the Greek pity 
them ? Methinks not. That they will in 
all probability be safe from such a visit- 
ation they will not owe to the wisdom of 
their own government, but to that higher 
government which mocks the short-sighted 
contrivances of all human policy. The 
power of the Ottoman empire has reached 
another turning point, and in spite of all 
Christian propping, looks as though it tot- 
tered towards a fall. 

The Prater is a great feature at Vienna. 
The capital was not very full. During my 
stay, I never saw more than from four hun- 
dred to six hundred carriages on the drive ; 
and it was rather too late in the season for 
reposing on grass, and under the shade of 
trees in the evening. But it is a fair and 



300 VIENNA. 

pleasant sight to see the whole of the 
respectable and middle classes of Vienna 
walking in family groupes, and presenting 
to your eye, in good clothes, healthy looks, 
and calmly smiling faces, many clear indica- 
tions of an active and rewarded industry, 
easy circumstances, and a thankful enjoy- 
ment of them. 

The English traveller, however, forgets 
not that, within these twenty years, this 
pleasure-park has been twice visited by 
enemies. That the Prater was a busy 
bivouac, that the sulphurous clouds of bat- 
tle have rolled near it, and that the dying 
and the wounded have lain scattered under 
the shade of those trees where music, and 
the song, and the jest, are now again the 
familiar sounds : you could not stop many 
families on their walk there at this hour 
who would not have some little domestic 
tragedy of that period to relate to you. 

Although the loyalty of the helpless 
inhabitants of Vienna was never for a mo- 
ment concealed, even after their city was 
possessed by the French, yet they speak well 
of the conduct of Napoleon, and of the dis- 



VIENNA. 301 

cipline of his troops. The Itinerary of Rei- 
chard, to awaken, I suppose, the feelings 
and indignation of the traveller, records, 
that " the tame stags in the Prater were all 
killed by the French soldiers in 1809." An 
old campaigner may be pardoned for sus- 
pecting that the Austrian yager and the 
Hungarian hussar had their share of the 
venison. By some easy arrangement this 
loss has been repaired. A little beyond 
the head of the more public drive the deer 
come lightly up to the passer-by, with a 
pretty unwondering tameness ; and it is a 
pastime, they tell me, with young Napoleon, 
when resident in or near the capital, to 
visit the haunt of these beautiful ani- 
mals most evenings, and to watch them at 
their play. 

During my stay at Vienna there were 
no public concerts, neither was there an 
opera that season ; so that I only heard 
their fine military bands, the pieces exe- 
cuted by their various orchestras at the 
theatres, the excellent choir of St. Stephen's, 
and the never-to-be-forgotten requiem at 
the palace chapel. Judging from these 



302 VIENNA. 

things alone, I may err ; but I should say 
that the Germans feel music very deeply, — 
that it profoundly affects them. They do 
not, like the Italians, hum every note they 
hear ; but, though they pass away in silence, 
they carry the melody in their heart. The 
eye of the Italian, when he listens, sparkles ; 
the eye of the German is not unfrequently 
dim with that rising tear which does never 
fall, but marks the ebb and flow of the 
heart's tide. The Italian is mercurial and 
imitative ; the air which is running in his 
head he must warble as he goes, for want 
of thought. In the German, music does 
a deeper work ; it reaches the centre and 
source of feeling, and awakens thoughts 
which cannot be indulged otherwise than 
in silence. Here, too, I would remark, 
and the connection of the subjects is ad- 
missible, that the Roman Catholic of Ger- 
many in his church seems quite another 
being from that of Italy ; and the character 
which Goldsmith has so beautifully and 
faithfully given of the latter applies in 
nothing: to the German. He is seldom 
careless or irreverent at the mass, seldom 



VIENNA. 303 

timid, or formal, or slavish, in his acts of 
devotion. There is a something staid in 
his outward performances ; but " the soul's 
sincere desire" is perceptible, and plainly 
so, in the expression of his countenance, 
when engaged in prayer. 

I know many of my readers will ex- 
claim, " This is all fancy : you deceive 
yourself willingly, according to the frame 
of your mind, and the tone of your reflec- 
tions at the moment." — Really, I think 
simply what I say : appearances, generally, 
are all I pretend, as a traveller, to ex- 
amine, — are almost the only guides of my 
judgment ; and, I must say, speaking from 
long personal experience, and frequent 
comparison of my own hasty inferences 
with those of persons far better qualified 
to judge, I do not think that the eye is so 
unfaithful an interpreter to the traveller as 
many imagine. 

The interior of domestic circles in Vienna 
I did not see : few, very few travellers do. 
It is by no means difficult for an English 
gentleman to obtain introduction to the 
large and public assemblies of the higher 
circles : but these can have little of character 



304 VIENNA. 

in their aspect ; and I felt little disappointed 
that there were none held at the season 
of my visit. I own I should have greatly 
coveted admission to those private circles 
where families meet in quietude, and are 
fond of music, peace, and each other. That 
Vienna contains many such I have no 
doubt ; for although the quietism of small 
parties is not so much the taste in Vienna 
as in the north, yet, all over Germany, 
numbers of respectable families are to be 
found, where those tastes are quietly in- 
dulged, which minister to innocent delight, 
and on which it is seldom the privilege of a 
stranger even to gaze. In speaking of music, 
I should observe, that from many things 
which I saw, and from many inquiries 
which I made, I am of opinion, as I have 
ever been, that there is nowhere on the 
Continent, not even in Germany, so much 
parlour and drawing-room enjoyment of 
it as in England. The music, where you 
have it, is better, perhaps ; but then it is 
more of a public amusement. If you ex- 
amine the long lists of amateurs abroad, 
you will find a count and a cobbler on the 
same page ; and in the concert saloons 



VIENNA. 305 

there is collected, on a momentary equality, 
all the musical talent which men and wo- 
men, of all classes, can contribute : but 
such is the happy structure of our society 
in England, that in any considerable city 
you may knock at twenty different doors, 
and find a well-toned instrument in the 
music-room, with its fair attendance of 
gentle and accomplished performers. The 
like you might do at almost every decent 
country-seat; and, if you speak of London, 
the thought startles you. 

On the other hand, for one English gen- 
tleman who plays the flute, Germany has 
a hundred. If you meet two fine young 
officers walking together, you know that 
they can go to their barrack-room and 
play a duet : if you see a solitary, hand- 
some, lover-like looking officer of cuiras- 
siers riding slowly at the garden of Schon- 
brunn (and I remember me of such a one), 
you know that he has got his flute at home 
to feed his flame, or to discourse for him to 
the mistress of his heart : but, with regard 
to a general cultivation of music among the 
females in Germany, as an accomplishment, 



306 VIENNA. 

it is not so extensive a practice as we ima- 
gine, although, perhaps, German ladies are, 
in this respect, far more widely taught than 
the indolent dames of Italy. 

All Germans whom I have met, who had 
been much in society in England, and in 
good society, expressed themselves alike 
surprised and charmed with the many 
sweet attractions of our private circles, 
arising from the accomplishments, the ta- 
lents, and the graces of our women. But 
to the eye, many things reveal the mode 
of life of circles which you do not enter. 
I like, in foreign cities, to stand in the 
market-places, lounge near shops of furni- 
ture, jewellery, toys, and fill up the frame- 
work of private houses thence. 

In all comforts Vienna abounds : I 
should think a winter and spring there de- 
lightful ; and although the Viennese speak 
impure German, yet to the learner of Ger- 
man, who might, of course, find a first-rate 
master, a regular attendance at such a 
theatre as that of Vienna would be an 
incalculable advantage. It is not, however, 
necessary to talk German to reside in this 



VIENNA. 807 

capital ; French is universally spoken ; Ita- 
lian is common. Metastasio passed a life 
here ; and his vocabulary of German did not 
exceed twenty words, which he only learned, 
as he declared, to save his life. He always 
professed the greatest aversion and con- 
tempt for the language, the meaning of 
which every one knows to be in his, and in 
all like cases 3 a consciousness of inaptitude 
to master its pronunciation, and conquer its 
difficulties. 

It cannot be denied that the political de- 
gradation of the Viennese is extreme: not 
being allowed either to lift up the voice or 
employ the pen upon the subject of politics, 
they have become naturally indifferent to all 
public acts which do not personally affect 
them, and, as a necessary consequence, most 
ignorant about them. They cannot answer 
your questions on the most common mea- 
sures relating to their internal policy ; and 
they smile to see your curiosity and eager- 
ness about matters which they leave, with- 
out one sigh of regret, to be ordered and 
controlled by a cabinet that works in dark- 
ness. 

x 2 



308 



VIENNA. 



There is a very strict police in Vienna ; 
but it does not and has no occasion to 
trouble itself with the inhabitants. As to 
foreigners, with the exception, perhaps, of 
English, the eye is ever on them. English 
sentiments are known, — by contented slaves 
are laughed at, and ridiculed just as heartily 
as the government might desire, — by think- 
ing men are respected in silence, and with- 
out notice. There is no necessity to fol- 
low about an Englishman, and learn what 
he says, or to open his letters, and see 
what he writes. If, indeed, he is found in 
close intimacy with suspected foreigners, 
or if he obtrudes his opinion in public 
places, with an evident desire to disturb 
the tranquillity of society, and to awaken 
among contented subjects feelings of hos- 
tility to the measures of their cabinet, he 
must expect what he deserves, — an order 
to quit the city. But the English appear 
to me, wherever I have been on the Con- 
tinent, and at Vienna as elsewhere, to enjoy 
a very remarkable exemption from all petty 
persecutions. They may express their opi- 
nions freely, and maintain them quietly in 



VIENNA. 309 

the common course of conversation, when 
the topics naturally call them forth ; they 
may go to a casino, where they will find 
The Morning Chronicle for perusal ; and 
they may give it, if they like, the rumple 
of approbation when they alight on any 
well-penned passage against Prince Met- 
ternich and the Holy Alliance. They may 
walk, ride, and drive about the city, in 
every direction, with the regular Bull 
look, — 

" Pride in their port, defiance in their eye :" 

nor will they find themselves, at their hotel, 
charged one dollar more than the submiss 
Austrian, for being the lords of human kind. 
But there is one thing they must not do ; — 
they must not, by mistake, lay their cane 
across the shoulders of a hackney-coach- 
man in Stephen-Platz, for the Jarvey here 
is quite as independent a personage as his 
brother-whip in St. Paul's Church-yard, 
and will, as some Englishmen of rank can 
testify, most assuredly return the blow. I 
have my doubts if this privilege would not 

x 3 



.310 VIENNA. 

pass muster for the fair Goddess of Liberty 
herself, with many of our ill-taught mob- 
patriots at home. The nobles of Vienna, 
however, never come, in any way, in rude 
contact with the people, and never disturb 
them by their pride. With no political 
power, with no public duties, they are 
merely a class elevated in rank and pos- 
sessions : their titles, their wealth, and some 
inconsequent privileges, alone, but yet 
widely, separate them from the people, for 
whom, indeed, they can do little but open 
their gardens and their galleries, for lighter 
hearts than their own to enjoy. There is 
a something of military pomp, a something 
of feudal display, among these nobles, when 
resident on their wide estates, which may, 
for a moment, dazzle even the Englishman : 
but they sink into utter insignificance in his 
estimation, when compared with the aris- 
tocracy of his native country. The duties 
of British peers are, indeed, pre-eminently 
glorious : they are at once guardians of the 
rights and the libert}' of the people, — of 
the privileges and the dignity of the crown ; 
while the Austrian noble lias no liberty of 



VIENNA. 311 

his own, and no dignity beyond the sound 
of a title and the glitter of a star. 

I have not noticed many things in Vi- 
enna which travellers are always taken to 
see, and which any guide-book will indi- 
cate : but I must not leave the city without 
mention of the church and convent of 
the Capuchins, where, in a low dark vault, 
lie the remains of all the Imperial house 
of Austria, from the days of the Emperor 
Matthias. The coffins are very large, and 
of bronze, those of the earliest date per- 
fectly plain, others wrought with trophies 
and achievements. A Capuchin lights a 
taper, and conducts you round them : he 
tells the tale of each in monkish Latin, and 
with a monkish tone ; and, at the frequent 
pause, he rings his knuckle on each bronze 
chest, as if the bones within could confirm- 
ingly reply. The largest, most decorated, 
and stately of these, (indeed it is a tomb, 
and not a mere coffin,) is that of Maria 
Theresa. He tells you how she caused it 
to be erected during her life, and how she 
was wont to visit and descend into this 
vault, and pass long hours in it alone, in 

x 4 



312 VIENNA. 

prayer and meditation. Madame de Stael 
has finely observed upon this : — " 72 y a 
beaucoup tfexemples (Tune devotion serieuse 
et const ante par mi les souverains de la terre : 
comme Us nobeissent qua la mort, son irre- 
sistible pouvoir les frappe davantage. Les 
difficult es de la vie se placent entre nous et 
la tombe ; tout est aplani pour les rois 
jusquau terme, et cela meme le rend plus 
visible a leurs yeux" 

The finest monument in Vienna is that 
to the memory of the Archduchess Chris- 
tina, in the church of the Augustines : 
the work is Canova's. There are no less 
than eight figures in the composition. As 
a mere group of statues, a creation of 
the sculptor, I admired it greatly ; but, as 
a monumental memorial, I regard it cum- 
brous and overdone. I should think that 
the noble and grand simplicity of Canova's 
taste was compelled to yield to the affection- 
ate but unfortunate wishes of his employer, 
who desired a work vast and costly. His 
noble group of Theseus killing the Mino- 
taur adorns this city, and stands in a temple 
on the Grecian model, erected on purpose 



VIENNA. 313 

to contain it. It is wretchedly placed, in a 
low situation, near the ramparts : it should 
stand alone in some park or garden, like the 
famous Toro Farnese at Naples. 

It is a very great delight at Vienna that 
the arrangements at the museums, galleries, 
palaces, and, in fine, at all places, where any 
thing of interest is exhibited, are the most 
liberal and convenient. All travellers have 
remarked, with something of pain and in- 
dignation, that this city contains no monu- 
ments of princely or public gratitude to the 
memory of those great men who have ren- 
dered services to Austria. In a despotic 
state such marks of honour can alone be 
given by the sovereign. Maria Theresa 
erected a tomb to Marshal Daun, and a 
monument to the memory of Van Swieten, 
which last was removed from its place of 
honour with little regard to her intention, 
but only, however, to make room for that 
of an emperor. In the church of the Au- 
gustines, where Daun reposes, the anniver- 
sary of the victory of Collin is celebrated 
by a public Te Deum, on the 18th of June, 
every year ; and on the 3d of November a 



314 



VIENNA. 



Requiem is sung here, in the presence of 
the garrison, to the memory of the Aus- 
trian soldiers who were slain. Eugene lies 
entombed in the cathedral of St. Stephen ; 
and the Emperor Joseph II. placed the 
busts of Loudon and Lacy, in honour of 
their services, in the hall of the Council 
of War. His own equestrian statue is one 
of the most deserved and gratifying me- 
morials in this capital. It is of bronze, on 
a pedestal of granite, and the inscription 
one that can seldom be applied with truth 
to any monarch or subject ; but that we 
know to have been merited by this illus- 
trious, generous-minded, enthusiastic so- 



vereign 



" SALUTI PUBLICO V1XIT NON DIU SED TOTUS." 

Considering the shortness of his reign, 
I think it doubtful whether his condemned 
precipitancy and enthusiasm are to be 
regretted. Whatever he had attempted 
against the civil power of the church of 
Rome, the priest would have worked step 
by step in counteraction of his measures ; 



VIENNA. 315 

whereas he stripped her of immense and 
irrecoverable influence, when he opened 
the treasures of her convents, dispersed 
their wealth, drove forth the corrupt and 
idle members, and alienated their wide 
possessions. The half of what he sup- 
pressed never have been and never can be 
re-established. Perhaps no one individual 
of the Austrian empire has more deserved 
a public monument ; and it is to the credit 
of his nephew to have erected this statue 
to his fame. 

In one way it will not excite any great 
surprise that the public monuments are few, 
for the great men have been few; and as the 
nobles of the empire who have, from time 
to time, distinguished themselves in leading 
her armies, and fighting her battles, have, 
in genera], been possessed of great wealth, 
the Palfys and Lichtensteins sleep be- 
neath tombs erected by their own princely 
houses. 

In leaving Vienna, all that I can say 
is, that I have seen the city, the popu- 
lation, and a hundred things, trifles in 
themselves, but such as no traveller could 



316 PRAGUE. 

have described for me, nor could I hope to 
convey to the mind of any reader, and such 
as well reward the gazing wanderer. 

It is a great convenience that from this 
point you may journey to almost any of the 
principal cities of Germany rapidly and 
commodiously. 

There is an eilwagen to Prague, which 
place you reach in six-and-thirty hours. If 
there are more passengers than fill the car- 
riage, they are conveyed in extra vehicles, 
and the whole proceed by post under the 
charge of one conductor. 

With the exception of Znaym in Mo- 
ravia, and Collin in Bohemia, you pass no 
large towns. The country is well cul- 
tivated, the villages populous. The pea- 
sants look not so healthy or handsome as 
those of Austria Proper, and there are 
many beggars on the road. There is very 
little beauty of scenery : mountains, how- 
ever, are always to be seen in the far dis- 
tance. You cross many hills, but arrive 
only on more elevated plains, till, at length, 
you descend into that vast one, far away in 
the very bottom of which lies the ancient 



PRAGUE, 317 

city of Prague. For the last few miles you 
run with the collar along a road so wide, that 
platoons might march upon it with a full 
front, as doubtless they often have. What 
is the first and most natural association 
with Prague in the mind of the English tra- 
veller ? Why, I will venture to say, — 
with nine out of ten, aye, and I will not 
except heads ten times as full and wise as 
mine, — it is The Battle. Not the battle, as 
recollected in history, or thought of in po- 
litical consequence, but that battle which 
we have heard well or ill played some 
scores of times in our boyhood. I can re- 
member, as it were yesterday, though it is 
five-and-twenty years ago, how often I have 
stood by the corner of a grand piano, 
as a little frilled boy, teasing fair girls that 
were passing into womanhood, to play me 
" The Battle of Prague" which I thought 
at that time a most wonderful composition, 
with its " sound of cannon" — "rolling of 
musketry" — " trumpet" — " charge of 
cavalry" — " galloping of horses"- — " clash- 
ing of swords" — " groans of the wounded 
and the dying" — " grand march" — " God 



318 PRAGUE. 

save the King;" — and then that little 
light Turkish music to set all right again 
in the stirred heart, and send you away a 
smiling messenger for the rewarding glass 
of lemonade or orgeat Of course I went 
to the memorable field. It was a very cold 
and cloudy day : the plain looked black 
in spite of the stubble, and bare and 
gloomy. All the realities of the after-scene 
of a general engagement were present to 
my mind's eye. I could not sing, " Oh, 
what a glorious thing's a battle !" — " Roll 
drums merrily, march away," stuck fairly in 
my throat, and I scarce felt as a soldier 
ought to feel, till I came upon the tomb of 
Marshal Schwerin, a plain, quiet cenotaph, 
erected in the middle of a wide corn-field, 
on the very spot where he closed a long, 
faithful, and glorious career in arms. He 
fell here at eighty years of age, at the head 
of his own regiment, the standard of it 
waving in his hand. Men do ordinarily 
lean upon their staves in sorrow before that 
age, or sit feeble in the easy chair, the 
foot upon the cushioned stool, or clasp 
with lean and withered fingers a book of 



PRAGUE. 319 

prayer. His seat was in the leathern saddle, 
his foot in the iron stirrup, his fingers 
reined the young war-horse to the last. It 
is a something that fills the mind as you 
muse on it. It would seem like the an- 
swering of a warrior's prayer, made con- 
stant through a long life, — so to live, and 
so to die. 

Prague is a city which does, in aspect, 
entirely correspond with the notions you 
would form of it ; that is, the older parts 
of the city. The more modern streets are 
wide and handsome ; but the market-place, 
the bridge, the fine old Gothic cathedral on 
the hill, the many towers, and domes, and 
spires of church and convent, the vast and 
decaying palaces of the ancient Bohemian 
nobles, the large public edifices, and the 
old style of architecture in the private 
mansions, give a character of grandeur to 
old Prague, which, to a lover of the pic- 
turesque, is far more impressive than any 
view of Vienna. A dozen times the tra- 
veller will cross and recross the bridge, 
stained with the grey hue of age, and 



320 PRAGUE. 

guarded, as it were, by eight-and-twenty 
large coarse statues of saints, under whose 
patronage, you know, the beggar of old 
was wont to take his stand, and across 
which the fiercest follower of Wallenstein 
must have passed unhelmeted, and made the 
sign of the cross upon his steel cuirass ; and 
the Jews, too, you know the very kind of 
step and gait, the bowed head, and the black 
glance with which they traversed it. No beg- 
gar accosts you now. The devout Catholic 
raises his hat, as he passes the crucifix in 
the centre of the bridge. The Lutheran 
passes on and away, calm and covered ; 
and if he is a man of thought, and historical 
associations cross his mind, while he blesses 
God for the quiet toleration he enjoys, for- 
gets not John Huss, and Jerome of Prague. 
The Englishman reflects, with no less gra- 
titude, on the memory of the great Wick- 
liffe, his countryman, and regards the 
immense power of human influence with de- 
lighted awe. " How solemn is a residence 
in this world," when we can trace, through 
five centuries, and among countless millions, 



PRAGUE. 321 

the effects of what one conscientious priest 
thought, uttered, and wrote, during a brief 
human life ! 

The Protestants are not very numerous 
in Prague ; but they are, and from the 
days of Joseph II. have been, in peace. 
I did little at Prague but saunter about 
for three days, in idle pleasure, entering 
places as the fancy took me. I walked 
through the stately saloons in the forsaken 
palace of Wallenstein. The frescoes on 
the walls are bright as when he trode in 
them. The vast and magnificent-looking 
palace of Czernim, which travellers of the 
last century saw in splendour, is naked, 
dilapidated, in part quite deserted, and 
many of its large chambers given up to 
the houseless poor, who wander about its 
chill, cold space, as though they were 
houseless still. 

I heard high mass at the cathedral : the 
music and singing were of the finest. 
There is a large silver shrine of their patron 
saint, Nepomucenus, which has escaped all 
plunderers, and survived the wars of cen- 
turies : yet one tower of this very church 

Y 



322 PRAGUE. 

lies still in ruins, and recalls the fierce 
bombardment of the city by Frederick the 
Great. On the heights above the citadel 
you may still see the stone where Frederick 
is recorded to have sat while he reconnoitred 
the place. The extent of Prague is so 
great, it would take an army to garrison 
and defend it. The works are in a ruinous 
state, nor will they suffer any stranger to 
ascend the slopes of the rampart. The 
view from the walls of the upper town over 
the city, with the Moldau flowing broad 
and freshly through it, is very noble. In 
the Imperial and archiepiscopal chateaux 
in this quarter there are many curious old 
paintings, of interest, but not of merit. 
The square, in the larger or lower town, 
has a very ancient aspect, especially the 
old town-house, and the front of one which 
was occupied by Tycho Brahe. In this old 
square is the grand or main guard. I saw 
it relieved. The men, Bohemian grena- 
diers, were tall, handsome soldiers. The 
band, which was of great strength, consist- 
ing of not less4han forty musicians, made 
a most slovenly appearance, being dressed 
13 



PRAGUE. 323 

in great-coats of different ages, shapes, and 
colours ; and this was the less excusable, 
as it was a fine, though chilly day. I never 
saw any thing, in its way, more offensive to 
a military eye. However, I forgot all while 
they were playing : these Austrian bands 
would wake the dead. 

In one of the streets of the new town 
there was exhibiting a panorama of the 
British expedition to the North Pole. I 
was bent on an object elsewhere at the 
moment, or I should certainly have entered, 
for the pleasure of seeing the fierce Uhlan, 
who scarce knows there is a sea of ice, or 
a sea of any kind, or any danger save the 
melee of squadrons, and the fire of artillery, 
gazing upon that desolate theatre of daring 
enterprise. I met one of these Uhlans after 
I passed it, the pennon waving on his lance. 
He was admirably mounted, grew to his 
saddle, and made his horse give that proud 
play of rear and plunge, which would un- 
seat better riders than John Gilpin. This 
long peace wilL effect wonders in making 
the nations of Europe better acquainted 

y 2 



324 PRAGUE. 

with each other, will destroy a thousand 
petty prejudices, and awaken generous and 
useful sympathies. In many ways this work 
is silently going on : prints and engravings, 
descriptions and anecdotes in newspapers, 
small articles of cheap luxury, and of neat 
finished manufacture ; nay, Warren's black- 
ing helps : you may buy a bottle, with the 
label at least, in any large city in Europe : 
and this leads me to remark, for the sake 
of young and particular travellers, that the 
German Boots, in all the good inns, is own- 
brother to his English namesake, and far 
before his cousin in the like station in 
France or Italy ; he will polish a boot for 
you as if you were going to parade. But 
to leave these mean topics, there is one re- 
markable triumph, which, during this pe- 
riod of tranquillity, has been achieved by 
genius. The author of Waverley has made 
a moral conquest of Germany. Here, in 
old Prague, there was not a bookseller's 
shop where I did not observe that his works 
were not only exposed for sale, but pla- 
carded in the window. The Germans find 
great fault with the. translations which they 



PRAGUE. 325 

have of them ; but they say so much beauty 
rays through the obscurity of those trans- 
lations, that they are universally read. A 
German gentleman declared to me that vast 
numbers of his countrymen had learned the 
English language solely for the pleasure of 
perusing those tales in the original, — a 
statement borne out by the fact that they 
are everywhere to be procured in English, 
and that you repeatedly meet at hotels, 
coffee-houses, in the theatres, and in public 
conveyances, young men who speak enough 
English to show you that they read the 
language, and who invariably address you 
about those novels, and their reputed au- 
thor ; and on more than one occasion I was 
asked questions as to the meaning of words 
they could not find in their dictionaries, and 
which showed that they read with attention 
and relish. 

They complain that their own literature 
is little known in England, greatly under- 
valued, and such works as have been 
translated into English miserably ren- 
dered. How far they may be right I am 
not qualified to form a judgment ; but I 

y 3 " 



326 PRAGUE. 

should think that the Tale of Sintram 
must retain in its English dress much of 
the spirit of its original ; for it certainly 
has a charm as wild, and as fearful, as 
ever stirred the imagination of a reader. 
But one thing confirmatory of the German 
complaint I know, namely, that the trans- 
lation of Wallenstein by Mr. Coleridge is 
not procurable in London, although it 
needs not to say how such a gentleman 
would have executed such a task, — a proof, 
if any were wanting, that their literature is 
neither known nor regarded among us as 
it should be. They say it is impossible 
to translate the Faust. They are probably 
right ; but it can hardly be considered as 
a sealed work of genius by those who have 
read the beautiful version of it we are pos- 
sessed of. 

I met with several pleasant conversible 
men at the table of my hotel, and received 
particular attention from some Austrian 
officers of rank. I was present at the repre- 
sentation of a piece in the theatre, which 
was exceedingly well acted ; but there did 
not appear much in it beyond spectacle : 



PRAGUE. 327 

however, the heroine, the beauty, the dia- 
mond, the treasure of this drama, was 
" eine Englanderin ;" and some Germans 
near me were full of the great beauty of 
English women, who enjoy such a fame 
throughout Germany as might be deemed 
by many, not by me, extravagant. 

I also heard at this theatre, another 
night, the opera of Tancredi. The orchestra 
was perfect. A third night I witnessed 
the performance of the Abbe de VEpee. 
Being acquainted with the story, and re- 
membering John Kemble in the character 
of the Abbe, I was enabled to follow the 
actors through their parts, and received 
the highest gratification that chaste and 
natural acting could, in a piece of that 
class, afford. They admirably understand 
the stage business, and all that quiet, deli- 
berate, effective by-play, which does so 
amazingly increase the interest excited, and 
give such reality to the illusion. 

I had instructed my domestique de place 
to get me the half of a carriage, or a seat 
in one where the party was a good one. 
" Cela suffit" and a bow; and he soon 

y 4 



328 PRAGUE. 

returned boasting of a "fort belle occasion" 
for Dresden. Accordingly, in the morning, 
having dismissed and settled with him the 
night previous, I found myself in a most 
wretched vehicle, dirty and incommodious, 
with a captain of Austrian hussars, good- 
looking, but evidently vacant, helpless, and 
heavy. A soft man, as we should say, had 
been taken in by this driver, like myself. 
We moved off at a snail's pace, and very 
soon, according to my suspicion, pulled up, 
and the driver went off in search of chance- 
passengers. I sat patient for a while, like 
the man in the Cuckoo, but at last fled, 
to the astonshment of the phlegmatic 
Baron, and the disappointment of the 
driver, who was to have had as much 
from me as would have been a fair price 
for the carriage to myself. Boots was my 
friend, ran after the vehicle, and recovered 
my valise from the driver, who returned in 
a vain rage to claim me ; and, in another 
hour, I found for myself, and to myself, at 
a reasonable rate, a return-carriage, with 
capital horses, and a civil driver, for Toplitz. 
" Cela suffit" and " Fort belle occasion ;" — 



PRAGUE. 329 

knowing well those domestiques de place, how 
could I trust to the treacherous phrases ? 

I had a delightful drive, slept at a small 
village, where I was comfortably accom- 
modated, and the next day at the place, 
where I refreshed, encountered the carriage 
I had abandoned. I was amazingly diverted 
when I learned from the poor Baron, who, 
with another officer of Austrian cavalry, was 
just about to sit down to dinner, and whom 
I immediately joined, that they packed 
in with him two fat old Jewesses of the 
lower order, not pleasant or clean in aspect, 
and who were then feeding in the kitchen. 
It is true, when first I entered, the Baron 
trod up and down stately ; and though he 
bowed, smoked, and would not speak, he 
soon relaxed, probably from observing an 
exulting smile in my eye, and made this 
confession of his fate, which was still to 
endure for a day and a half: however, he 
had now the support of a brother-officer. 
This gentleman was come on leave from the 
frontiers of Turkey, where his regiment 
was stationed. He told me that a great 
change was observable among the Turkish 



330 PRAGUE. 

troops on that station. They were by no 
means the haughty and insolent men re- 
membered by those officers long acquainted 
with the frontier, but were yielding and 
conciliatory, and affected the part of " bon 
camarade" with all the Austrians near 
them. With these two officers I had a very 
long conversation : the one was a man of 
forty, the other somewhat younger, both 
captains of cavalry, and all their lives in the 
service. They could neither of them tell 
me the strength of the Austrian army, the 
number of regiments, or the proportion of 
the respective arms to each other: they 
tried to guess, and seemed to me quite lost 
and bewildered by the vain attempt. This, 
really (though I admit they were not very 
wise subjects), speaks volumes for the pro- 
verbial indifference of the Austrian to all 
arrangements of his government, which do 
not personally affect him as an individual. 
These were old officers, and knew less 
about the composition of their army at 
large than I did, who had just traversed 
their country, ignorant of their language. 
Of the Italian levies, of the Tyrolese yagers, 



LOWOSITZ. 331 

they knew nothing more than that there 
were troops of that description, whom they 
never chanced to have seen, and concerning 
whom they had never made any particular 
inquiries. I should certainly add, that I sus- 
pect both these men were mere " sabreurs," 
and had probably been raised from the ranks, 
as handsome, clean, steady-duty soldiers : 
but I often put the same questions to other 
military men in Austria, and I never got 
clear answers. After passing a very cheer- 
ful hour with these officers, I left them to 
smoke their second pipe, and walked for- 
ward alone, desiring the carriage to follow 
me when ready. The name of the place 
where I had dined was Lowositz, and the 
hill up which I walked overlooked and 
formed part of a field, memorable for a 
very bloody victory, gained by the Prus- 
sians over a Saxon army in 1756. 

The bright sun of a still afternoon, late 
in the autumn, was shining mildly over 
every object. In a vineyard on the slope 
they were engaged in carrying the last 
of the vintage, and I met a party of 
itinerant musicians coming slowly down 



332 lowositz. 

the hill, consisting of two elderly men, a 
boy, and five women, bearing harps. They 
stopped at my request : the women took 
the covers from their harps, and they 
played and sung for me, with a harmony 
and a feeling I have often listened for in 
drawing-rooms in vain. Pleased with my 
evident contentment, they regaled me for 
more than a quarter of an hour, " con 
amore," and sent me forward with such a 
stock of happiness for the rest of the day as 
sweet sounds do alw T ays give us. These poor 
women were brown, and weather-beaten as 
gipsies, yet there w 7 as a touch, a turn, a 
tone of tenderness in every movement 
which they played, in every air they sung. 
Bohemia is the land of music. The chil- 
dren in the villages are taught at school to 
read the notes of music, like the letters of 
their alphabet ; and music, where it is not 
an occupation, is yet the solace of each 
poor man's life. 

It is certain, I think, that music must 
soften every heart over which it exercises 
an habitual influence. It must give a co- 
louring to the thoughts, a capacity for 



TOPLITZ. 333 

those deep reveries which lift man's spirit 
to the invisible world, and without being 
conscious of it, he is imperceptibly imbued 
with all that is indefinably sublime in the 
mystery of our connection with those sha- 
dows and intelligences which flit unseen 
about our path and our bed, and hold 
communings with our lonely thoughts by 
day, and with our solitary visions in the 
night-season. Music has been called, I 
think it is by Madame de Stael, " a glo- 
rious inutility ;" a proof that it is one of 
those divine gifts to man, which was de- 
signed at once to sweeten our existence on 
earth, and to elevate our thoughts to heaven. 
We know, too, that angels sing. We know 
that through those clouds, which broke in 
floods of brightness on the shepherds' 
night, they sung " Glory to God on high, 
peace on earth, good will towards man !" 

I arrived in the evening at Toplitz. It 
is a watering place : the season was past, 
and the town forsaken. The houses are 
white, the shutters green, the roads well 
kept. There are some pretty rides, agree- 
able promenades, and picturesque scenery ; 



334 DRESDEN. 

and I should have thought it delightful if I 
could have forgotten Baden-Baden ! 

Dresden I entered by night. There is 
nothing of the stir or bustle of a capital 
about it ; few carriages are rattling on the 
stones, but the streets and buildings have 
regularity, and space, and height, which 
promise well to the stranger, and he will 
not be disappointed. 

Every visitor is pleased with the city of 
Dresden. It is not that the churches are 
remarkable, or that the palaces are stately, 
although the dome of the mother-church 
and the lofty tower of the palace are very 
striking objects, but it is, that there is a 
general air of freshness, and cleanness, and 
brightness, all about the city ; that a noble 
river rolls past it, spanned by a very fine 
bridge ; that there are two spacious squares 
or market-places, which have an aspect pe- 
culiar and quite their own. For, though 
many travellers have styled Dresden the 
Florence of Germany, the white mansions 
and regular fayades of Florence, and the 
red fronts, the forms and shapes of the 
windows, and of the gables, and house- 



DRESDEN. 335 

tops, in Dresden, stamp the cities as widely 
dissimilar. There is, indeed, one point where 
a comparison, though not a close one, is 
allowable : Dresden has its Gallery of Paint- 
ings, and Hall of Antiquities ; and, if Flo- 
rence can boast her Medicean Venus, the 
capital of Saxony, rich in the possession of 
the very finest Madonna ever conceived 
or painted by Raphael, may, like that city 
of the arts, ensure the pilgrimage of all 
worshippers of genius to her gates. I will 
first speak of this gallery. Reader, fear 
not ; I am not going to inflict on you a 
catalogue of its contents, but the Madonna 
del Sisto is common right, and I must have 
my say on it. The composition of the 
picture is known ; the descriptions of it 
are multiplied and accessible ; that of the 
Dresden catalogue is as follows : — 

" La Madonne avec l'Enfant divin sur 
une nue au milieu d'une gloire ; a droite un 
St. Pape a genoux ; il est vetu d'une tu- 
nique blanche et d'un pallium de drap d'or. 
La tiare est a son cote ; a gauche la Ste. 
Barbe egalement a genoux, et le regard 
baisse vers deux petits anges reposant sur 



336 DRESDEN. 

un plan au pied de cette composition, aussi 
sublime que simple." 

The form, the light and airy tread upon the 
cloud, the grace of her long and flowing gar- 
ments, the simple and lightly-folded mantle 
on her head, out of which looks forth a 
face of sacred innocence, give to this Virgin 
an air and an aspect that do largely speak 
of her high and blessed office. The Infant 
on her arm seems the mysterious Thing it 
was : it looks not like any child that was, 
or will be : its hair sits off from its young 
forehead; and thought, and sorrow, and 
grief, seem taking there their early seat, 
and looking gravely from its young eyes. 
St. Sixtus, an aged and withered figure, 
kneels in solemn wonder, and imploring 
adoration, with an intent and upward gaze. 
Santa Barbara, who has the youth, the 
beauty, the uncovered hair, the garments 
of woman as she is in high-born circles, 
bends her young head to earth as if 
in sweet rapture, yet subdued with awe. 
But earth has given the model of this Ma- 
donna : this is no face of the poet's dream, 
no face to search for in kings' palaces : it 



DRESDEN. 337 

is peasant beauty, — the beauty of a lowly 
being, — the beauty of innocent thoughts, 
of hallowed lips, of modesty that grows in 
the still hamlet, and that the heart's throb 
acknowledges for something to be loved 
and worshipped as above us, far above us, 
nigher to heaven than earth. Such is to 
me the character of Raphael's Madonna : 
it is the lowly handmaiden, the espoused 
Virgin, chosen to be the mother of a Holy 
Thing, blessed among women ! It is, at 
once, all that we should call the ideal of 
glorified mortality, and all that we know to 
be real on our earth among those human 
flowers which blush unseen in quiet places. 
The cherub forms below, of themselves 
miraculous performances, give the finest 
possible idea of the angelic mind, — infant 
in innocence, mighty in comprehension. 
One rests his head upon his little hand, 
the other reposes his cheek upon his 
folded arms ; but, oh ! how deeply, sadly 
serious, is their gaze ! No earthly mind 
is looking from those eyes ; they have 
desired to look into the mystery, and 
they have been permitted so to do. They 



338 DRESDEN. 

see that the Child in the Virgin's arms is 
to be a man of sorrows and acquainted 
with grief; that he is the Lamb of God, 
the Redeemer of mankind: wonder, love, 
and faith, are in their looks. The life and 
death of Christ, unfolded to their prescient 
eyes, fill them with compassion ; and there 
is a something, too, of mourning for man, 
— the unbelieving and the scorner: — " If 
thou hadst known, even thou, at least, in 
this thy day, the things which belong unto 
thy peace ! but now they are hid from thine 
eyes." 

I never saw any picture in my life so 
heavenly, so hallowed in its conception as 
this. 5 This is the true Scripture Virgin, 
as the meditative Christian might conceive 
of her, — blessed among, and before, all 
women ; but still, woman only. 

I heard two criticisms on this master- 
piece, by artists. The first was from an 
elderly connoisseur, who stood by my side 
at one of my repeated visits to it, and ex- 
claimed pettishly : " (Test beau ; mais la 
Sainte Barbare gate tout." The second was 
from a female amateur, or artist, who was 



DRESDEN. 339 

engaged in taking a copy of the St. Cecilia 
of Carlo Dolce. She was a very fine copy- 
ist, a Frenchwoman, a Parisian. In reply 
to an observation of mine, upon this great 
chef-d'oeuvre, as I leaned over her easel, 
and was conversing with her on the con- 
tents of the gallery, she said, " Oui, Mon- 
sieur, tfest sublime ; mats ne troavez-vous pas 
que le regard de la Sainte Vierge vous fait 
frissoner ?" 

A page could not so fully have impressed 
me with all that in his high inspiration, Ra- 
phael designed to convey, and has so won- 
derfully succeeded in pourtraying — Frisso- 
ner ! yes, the Parisian belle, in whom the 
spark of modesty, though dimmed by that 
tainted atmosphere, has yet never been 
totally extinguished, may well gaze on the 
serene majesty which beams with a fixed 
ray from the eyes of the Madonna de San 
Sisto, and feel the involuntary chill. 

I must not detain my reader longer in 
this gallery, although I visited it daily for 
hours, giving always, however, by far the 
greater part of the time I lingered in it to 
the contemplation of this one picture. 
z 2 



340 DRESDEN. 

To have seen, and to have the memory 
of such a thing present to the mind at 
will, is an aid in the daily path, a help on 
the road to heaven. 

There was a grand requiem performed in 
the Catholic church at Dresden during my 
stay, in memory of the deceased electors of 
Saxony : it is annual. I went for the sake 
of hearing the music of this church, which 
is celebrated throughout Germany, and to 
see the royal family. 

I waited in a small antechamber of the 
palace to see the King of Saxony pass 
through the gallery, by which he enters his 
pew. Some guards, habited in scarlet, but 
in very bad taste, lined the passage. Not 
being at all prepared by any previous de- 
scription, I was much surprised to see an 
elderly gentleman, in a suit of court mourn- 
ing, with bag and solitaire, ruffles, and a 
muff, in which, except for some momentary 
use of them, his hands were kept close and 
warm. 

There is nothing in this : it was once, 
and not very long ago, the fashion through- 



DRESDEN. 341 

out Europe ; yet to see such a figure, and 
to think that it had worn a crown, through- 
out all the turbulent scenes which have 
agitated Europe within the last twenty 
years, and to know that the hand buried 
in a muff had been grasped with friendli- 
ness by that of Napoleon, gave a peculiar 
interest to the presence of this weak but 
worthy monarch. 

The music of this church deserves all its 
fame. The visitor who likes not the sight 
of violins in a church must turn his head 
away, and, forgetting they are there, listen 
only to the sacred harmony ; he will not, 
he cannot, be disappointed. It is true, 
some pain will mingle with his pleasure. 
Although the warbles of the most cele- 
brated vocalist there electrify and thrill, yet 
there is at times a jar, a break, a failing, 
as of the giving way of some fine chord ; 
and you are then affectingly reminded that 
you are listening to one whose cradle this 
hateful luxury of Italy has robbed, 

" And ravished thence the promise of a man ;" 
z 3 



342 DRESDEN. 

that he is one of those most unhappy of 
all unhappy beings, who are 

" Cast out from Nature, disinherited 

Of what her meanest children claim by kind." 

Dry den. 

I walked after service to the bridge, and 
sat long in one of the recesses, enjoying 
the noble view of the Elbe and the city. 
In that recess I sat where Napoleon passed 
three hours, watching the progress of his 
people as they finished the repairs of the 
bridge, and the defilement of his troops. 
A chapter in the account of the campaign 
of 1813, by Baron Odeleben, a Saxon officer 
on the staff of the then Emperor, is full of 
details concerning that extraordinary man, 
which will be read with interest by every 
one, and the memory of which, on the spot, 
gives many and very interesting pictures to 
the fancy. As a politician, Napoleon did 
not, certainly, shine during the conferences 
held at that period ; but, as a general, since 
his memorable and successive triumphs in 
three closely consecutive battles* in the 

* Montenotte, Millesimo, Mondovi. 



DRESDEN. 343 

campaign of 1796, in Italy, by his able ap- 
plication of the principle of central move- 
ments (his favourite one), he never appeared 
to greater advantage than when he repulsed 
the combined and well-concerted attack on 
his position at Dresden. 

The great and constant rival and enemy 
of Buonaparte perished upon the field of 
Dresden. We may question the soundness 
of the judgment which decreed him a mo- 
nument of honour on that field. The fame 
of a leader, whose triumphant entry into 
Augsburg and Munich, after defeating the 
Archduke Charles, whose yet more glorious 
retreat through the Black Forest, and whose 
victory of Hohenlinden will adorn the page 
of history for ever, needed not that this 
unfortunate, though not unaccountable 
close of his military life, should be thus 
mistakenly perpetuated. I did not visit the 
monument, which I learn, as might have 
been anticipated, has been desecrated by 
some scoundrel hand. I say scoundrel, 
because I suppose the thing to have been 
done secretly, and in the meanest spirit of 
vindictive envy. A French battalion, com- 

z 4 



344 DRESDEN. 

posed of men twenty years younger than 
Moreau, might have been forgiven the open 
overthrow of the monument. Heroic as a 
public character, estimable as a private one, 
Moreau had so identified in his own mind 
the love of France with hatred of Napo- 
leon, that he forgot how impossible it was 
for the mass of Frenchmen to look upon 
him, in the council and the camp of their 
enemies, with other sentiments than those 
of indignation, or of sorrow. 3 

These ends of renowned lives, how 
strange they are ! In the armoury of Dres- 
den you may see and grasp the pistols of 
Charles the Twelfth. There be few English 
visitors on whose minds the life, the his- 
tory, and the fate of this hero-monarch 
are not indelibly stamped by the nervous 
lines of Johnson. This armoury of Dres- 
den would be a most interesting display, 
were not the rooms so small, and the ar- 
rangement so wretched, that it is impossible 
to examine its contents. Here you may 
hold in your hand the first instrument on 
which an experiment was made with the 
newly-invented gunpowder of Schwartz. 



DRESDEN. 345 

Here you may see countless suits of ancient 
armour, and the most splendid horse-furni- 
ture among them ; the caparison of a horse 
so costly, that the frontlet, head-stall, neck- 
ornaments, and breast-plate, are entirely 
studded with large and beautiful turquoises. 
There are a number of relics of like in- 
terest ; things that are mere nothings in 
description, but are much to see. The 
like may be said of the treasures in the 
Green Vault ; it is a great and rare plea- 
sure to visit them : — crowns and regalia, 
rich with the most costly gems ; ancient 
services of massive embossed plate ; gob- 
lets and vases of antique forms ; precious 
enamels ; inlaid cabinets ; the finest camei ; 
quaint and grotesque toys, made of the 
coral and the pearl, the topaz and the 
emerald. Many articles of virtu, of the 
most curious and ancient workmanship, 
and some works in ivory, so beautifully 
carved in relief, that the infant bacchanal, 
the fair full form of woman, and the withered 
lines of age, are given with a grace, a truth, 
and life, which astonish and delight. I am 
sure I lingered an hour, at least, in the 



316 DRESDEN, 

small chamber where the articles in ivory 
are exhibited. Many of them are the out- 
sides of goblets, these being lined with a 
thin plate of gold. There is no catalogue 
of the contents of this vault, and the ob- 
jects to be viewed are so numerous and 
bewildering, that it is impossible, at one 
visit*, to make notes, or to separate and 
fix in your mind the things which you may 
be desirous to remember : but the effect, 
as a whole, is long thought of, and illus- 
trates for the curious fancy periods that 
have passed away. The hall of the throne, 
the cavalcade of the court, the board of the 
feast, the chamber, the cabinet of other days, 
is furnished out from a treasury like this, 
and you gaze undoubtingly on the past, 

The Dresden china is exhibited in a 
palace, where, in a long range of chambers, 
you may trace the rise and progress of an 



* The attendant there said to me, but not complain- 
ingly, as I went away, that few visitors, in his remem- 
brance, had detained him so long. I confess myself 
delighted with such trifles : — 

" These little things are great to little men." 



DRESDEN. 



347 



art which furnishes a most innocent and 
elegant luxury to man, — a luxury which, 
in degree, is felt throughout society at 
large. The effect which, I think, is pro- 
duced on the mind of the middle and 
humble classes throughout Europe, by the 
increasing elegance of form and pattern, in 
most of the articles of China, or humbler 
ware, now in common use among them, 
is most civilising. There is a something 
pleasing to the eye, contenting, reconciling, 
in these trifles ; and if they be elegant they 
will beget a gentleness in those who daily 
gaze on them. 

In the same building is the Hall of An- 
tiquities. I found in the collection a Mi- 
nerva, and some Vestals, — statues of the 
very highest class ! The Professor accom- 
panied me politely round the whole col- 
lection, and left me, at my request, alone. 
I enjoy all antiques alone ; and it is only 
so that I can. I take this to be the case 
with more travellers than care to own it. 
A man shows me a coin, (a Ptolemy, for 
instance,) throws out the flag of antiqua- 
rianism, spreads abroad the canvass of his 
learning, and sails away stately upon the 



348 DllESDEN. 

ocean of ancient history. Well, the thoughts 
that are amusing me are those connected 
with the history of the coin, and the do- 
mestic manners of past ages ; how it was 
upon the stone-table of money-changers in 
Alexandria before Christianity had dawned 
upon the world ; how it was bought, paid 
away, given, stolen ; how it was scrambled 
for by boys, and quarrelled for by men in 
good poluphloisboio Greek, long centuries 
ago. It is a liberty to talk thus with you, 
reader ; but I am fancying myself at dinner 
with you, and writing as I should speak. 

I was at a concert at Dresden which was 
very fully attended, and was highly grati- 
fied. A lady, who performed on the grand 
piano, made the instrument speak each 
note with a loud distinct clearness that was 
quite wonderful. I had no idea before that 
the powers of the piano were so great. 

At the theatre here I witnessed the per- 
formance of Herman and Dorothea. It was 
got up and given perfectly. The house was 
crowded : you might have heard a pin drop ; 
and nothing could be acted with a more 
natural, yet animated simplicity, than this 
interesting pastoral. 



DRESDEN. 349 

The German theatre is, apparently, as 
free from bad female company as a private 
assembly ; or if they do venture there, it is 
under that concealment of dress and de- 
meanour which forbids even a suspicion of 
their character. Would it were so with the 
theatres in England ! However, the moral 
aspect of the Dresden streets, after sunset, 
is bad enough ; worse, certainly, for the 
size of the city, than that of Vienna. 

There is an excellent reading-room at 
Dresden, where are the English papers, the 
English reviews, and Germans attentively 
reading them, " It is a great advantage 
to us Germans," a gentleman observed to 
me, in French, " that we are forced to 
make ourselves acquainted with the lan- 
guages of other nations, because we do not 
expect foreigners, however well educated, 
to be acquainted with ours, or to care 
about the study of it ; and yet," he said, 
" we are rich in original thinkers, and in 
good writers, and have had the great 
advantage of studying, not only the finest 
models in ancient times, but the finest 
which Italy, France, and England, have 



350 LEIPSIC. 

produced," It is pleasant to read in a 
German casino, it is so very still. Their 
eyes drink in the page before them with 
a silent eagerness, and at the too near 
approach or the stir they glare at you 
reprovingly. 

After six delightful days in Dresden, I 
took the eilwagen to Leipsic. The journey 
is made most pleasantly in a day. You 
leave Dresden at seven in the morning, 
and reach Leipsic at four in the afternoon. 
Our party consisted of a very fine young 
officer of riflemen, a young Russian, a stu- 
dent of Halle, a little fiery Saxon, domi- 
ciled at Paris, and myself The road to 
Meissen is beautiful : the majestic Elbe 
flows calmly by your side, and rock, wood, 
and verdure, adorn its banks with all that 
can give a pleasing variety to river-scenery. 
From Meissen to Leipsic there is less to 
interest the eye ; but the conversation was 
so animated, that I was heartily sorry when 
we reached our journey's end, and sepa- 
rated to our respective homes and hotels. 
If Germany has many such young officers, 
and if her universities, witli all his wild- 



LEIPSIC* 851 

ii ess, have many such students, she may 
be proud indeed. These young men were 
ready upon every subject, generous and 
enlightened upon all ; and yet, I do believe 
that the cap, the hair, and the pipe of the 
student, the moustache of the youthful sol- 
dier, would have caused many a most kind, 
quiet Englishman to have shrunk from 
conversing with fellow-passengers, whose 
exterior promised so little to reward the 
trouble* The German youth have a solidity 
of thought, and sincerity of heart, which 
colours all their conversation on subjects 
of a deep moral interest. They are largely 
tolerant on religious matters ; not as some 
have unfairly forced the inference, from in- 
difference to religion, but from a holding 
fast of what is essential in it, and declining 
all controversy, all bitterness, and quarrel- 
ling about the rest. 

The Roman Catholic of Germany is un- 
like any of that great family elsewhere. 
The Calvinist and the Lutheran love each 
other as Christians : all are inclined to 
mysticism in some slight degree, save the 
Rationalists, who are as inconsiderable in 



352 leipsic. 

numbers as they are uninfluential on the 
mind of the public at large. The school of 
the Rationalists * has not been without its 
use ; for man never appears so weak, so 
helpless, so ridiculous, as when he lights 
the feeble taper of his reason to examine 
and pronounce upon the credibility of those 
facts related, and those mysteries revealed 
to us in the Bible. " To live, and move, 
and have our being," a miracle to our- 
selves, and among created miracles of every 



* I have read, with deep attention, a volume of Ser- 
mons, by the Rev. Mr. Rose, of Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge. I merely would ask, as a query, whether " The 
State of Protestantism in Germany" be a fair title for 
the book of that learned gentleman ? To the mind of 
many readers, after a most careful perusal of the Notes 
appended to it, it will appear not fair. The lectures 
and discourses that gentleman heard in Germany, the 
cities and churches he visited, the congregations he 
observed in public, and the Christians whom he met 
in private, should have been given in that Appendix; also 
tables of the Protestant population, distinguishing the 
acknowledged profession and tenets of the different per- 
suasions; and the numbers in each church or sect, as far 
as they could be ascertained, should have been added to 
the list of those controversial works, which are, perhaps, 
less highly valued in Germany than he may imagine. 



LEIPSIC. 



353 



possible variety ; to find our reason baffled 
by the first pebble we pick up beneath our 
feet, all the properties of which we can 
most scientifically describe, but of the es- 
sence of which we know nothing; and then 
to explain away the less wonderful miracles 
of Scripture, because oar reason refuses 
credit to them, is a something so palpably 
absurd, that even the patient, inquiring 
German could not listen to such lectures 
long if they did not sooner drive him forth 
by inflicting a severe wound in his heart. 
I was present in the great church of Leipsic 
at the administration of the sacrament. 
The communicants stood in long files, and 
advanced reverentially towards the altar ; 
they received the holy elements standing, 
and passing round the altar, again rejoined 
the congregation. The congregation, whe- 
ther composed of those who were about 
to communicate, or had done so, or of 
those who merely assisted at the ceremony, 
sung a hymn or hymns throughout the 
whole service. After deducting largely for 
the effect produced on me by the sweet and 
solemn singing of this assembled multitude, 

A A 



354 leipsic. 

and by the black skull-cap, the ancient 
ruffs, (like those of our Elizabethan era,) 
and the reverend aspect of the officiating 
ministers, I certainly was impressed, and 
that strongly, with the feeling and sincere 
devotion of the communicants. We kneel 
at the altar, another church sits at the 
communion-table, these stand and sing a 
hymn : we all do it in remembrance that 
Christ died for us, and He knows in all 
these congregations those who are His, 
those who feed on Him in their hearts by 
faith with thanksgiving. 

The Sabbath-aspect of Leipsic was still 
and decorous. The people walk about on 
the promenades well dressed and quietly ; 
and were it not that there is a theatre open 
in the evening, you might take it for one of 
our large towns at home. 

I drove to the memorable field of Lutzen. 
There, by the road-side, beneath four spiral 
poplars, which rise monumentally above 
some rude stones bedded in the earth in the 
form of a cross, is the spot where Gustavus 
Adolphus, the great champion of the Pro- 
testant faith, fell covered with wounds amid 



LEIPSIC. 



355 



Croatian plunderers. The Swedish horse 
fought fiercely to recover his mangled and 
breathless body. Glorious in life, con- 
sistent and glorious in death, the morning- 
saw him on his knees fervent in prayer, as 
if every thing depended on God; the day 
beheld him spurring his noble charger into 
the heat of every danger, as if all depended 
on his single prowess. Wounded by two 
balls he fainted in his saddle, was thrown 
from his horse, and breathed his last, with- 
out one attendant, beneath the trampling 
melee of foes and friends. Peace to the 
Christian hero, who fought and fell for 
liberty of conscience ! Be it never forgotten 
that this it was which the church of Rome 
denied to, and denies the world ; and which 
the victorious Protestants of Germany, after 
thirty years of warfare and blood, have 
never yet denied to their fellow-countrymen 
of the church of Rome. 

The initials of the monarch's name are 
inscribed on a rough upright stone in the 
centre of the cross, and on another, " Gus- 
tavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, fell here 
for Liberty of Conscience." 
a a 2 



356 leipsic. 

In the arsenal at Vienna I saw the buff 
war-coat in which he died. To preserve 
the stones on his grave, and the trees near, 
from the destroying knives of pilgrims, 
there is a post and block of wood, erected 
for the very purpose of satisfying the 
strange, yet natural desire of man to com- 
memorate, it matters not how perishably, 
his visit to such a spot. This w T ood is 
covered with letter upon letter, till neither 
names nor initials are very easily decipher- 
able. I gathered a green leaf from one of 
the rustling poplars, gazed long upon the 
spot, walked all about the scene of that sad 
tragedy, and drove back to Leipsic. It 
was along this road that Wallenstein led 
back his discomfited forces, and caused Te 
Deum to be sung for a victory, which was 
claimed, and with greater reason, by the 
Swedes. It was along this road that the 
ferocious Pappenheim* was borne, de- 



* On his forehead two red streaks were perceptible, 

with which nature had marked him at his birth. These 

appeared, whenever in a passion, even in his later years. 

Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' War. 



LEIPSIC. 



351 



daring, in the agonies of death, that he 
died with pleasure, since he was certain 
that the most implacable enemy of his re- 
ligion had perished on the same field. 

The account of this obstinate and san- 
guinary contest is given in " The History 
of the Thirty Years' War," by Schiller, with 
wonderful animation. We stand with the 
historian and the poet upon the very field ; 
we see the devotions of the Swedish army, 
listen to their hymn, hear the sound of 
their trumpets. We can follow the King 
to his very fall ; and the terrible fierceness 
of the combatants, after the death of Gus- 
tavus was known, is present to the eye. 
Cannon were taken and retaken ; whole 
regiments lay dead on their ground ; Count 
Piccolomini had seven horses shot under 
him ; Wallenstein rode safe amid the death- 
shower, as if he bore a charmed life: 
darkness alone put an end to the battle, and 
the trumpet of victory was sounded in 
either camp. 

The appearance of the city of Leipsic is 
to me pleasing, and has a character in it. 

A A 3 



358 leipsic. 

The square and two or three of the streets 
have a something stately and ancient in 
their aspect. 

At Leipsic, the great mart for books, I 
had looked for a greater display than else- 
where in the shops of the booksellers, but 
this was far from being the case. There is 
no such comforting sight in the whole town 
as the inner or upper apartments of a coun- 
try bookseller in England do often present. 
The place has only its own proportion of 
printers and publishers ; and to judge from 
two English w T orks I saw lately got up in 
Leipsic, I should say nothing could be 
more coarse and wretched than the paper, 
the types, the ink, and the binding of these 
volumes. 

It is, I think, to be regretted that the 
Germans will not adopt the Roman letters 
in the publication of their own works. I 
am sure that it would greatly tend to spread 
the knowledge of their language ; and that 
it would not only facilitate their own stu- 
dies in the various languages of Europe, 
but would open wider the door of inter- 
course between Germany and England 



LEiPsic. 359 

more especially. It is a fond attachment 
to their father-land, and to every thing 
which their fathers have handed down to 
them, that accounts for this abiding pre- 
judice. But surely, speaking of the nations 
of Europe now, as one great family of bro- 
thers at peace, the one should yield to the 
many. I am sure that I am not mistaken 
in pronouncing the German character, both 
as printed and written, a repellant to many 
minds of power and cultivation ; and that 
where in England we should have two 
hundred men who would read German iri 
the Roman character, we now have not 
two. It enters not into the early studies of 
any English youth to learn German. This 
must be a pursuit of his choice, an acquis 
sition of his manhood ; and by that time 
he has generally contracted such a love of 
the matter of any thing he may design ta 
read, that he is impatient of any such bar 
to his eye's glance as a character to which 
he has never been accustomed, and some of 
the letters of which have a bewildering 
resemblance to each other in the eye of the 
beginner. 

a a 4 



360 LEIPSIC. 

There are pleasing promenades all about 
the town of Leipsic. The Plassenbourg is 
a fine old citadel ; — small, but the masonry 
of it solid, black, and picturesque. There 
is a botanical garden not far from the gates : 
it is open to the public. There are plea- 
sant walks, prettily placed seats, summer- 
houses, and a well fancied Chinese temple 
with bells that jingle in the wind ; a nar- 
row inconsiderable stream runs at the bot- 
tom of this pleasure-ground ; and in the 
midst of the garden is a fair green space, 
where some large and beautiful willows 
droop mournfully over a white cenotaph, 
erected to the memory of Poniatowski, the 
last of the Poles. The rivulet near, an 
obstacle which has scarce depth and width 
enough to stay a well-mounted fox-hunter, 
is the fatal Elster. Here sunk horse and 
rider; here sunk hundreds of the flying 
soldiery of France ; and slaughter was busy 
all about this green bank, where, never- 
theless, the primrose has often since spread 
as sweetly as ever, and the lily gay has 
shone up pure and innocent, as though the 
world were so, and might be trusted* 

18 



LEIPSIC. 361 

Heavens ! how man mars this green and 
flowery earth we tread upon ! and how 
proud is he of his polluting lordship over 
it ! I often think of that sweet ballad, 
" The Cruel Brother ; or, The Bride's Testa- 
ment *," and the wild burden that runs all 
through it. There vou have the world of 
nature, and the world of man, as awfully 
and mournfully contrasted as they ever 
were by poet. Youth, beauty, love, blushes, 
gay attire, wedlock, murder, and the wind- 
ing- sheet; these shift rapidly before you, 
yet there is nature, constant, gay, sweet, 
unchanging. 

I think, and I rejoice to think, that the 
world has grown somewhat wiser about the 
sad and melancholy game of war. My own 
feelings were always alive to the miseries it 

* A FRAGMENT OF THE BALLAD. 

" She lean'd her o'er the saddle-bow 
With a heigho-ho ! and a lily gay, 
To give him a kiss ere she did go, 
As the primrose spreads so sweetly. 

" He has ta'en a knife baith lang and sharp, 
With a heigh-ho ! and a lily gay, 
And stabbed the bonny bride to the heart, 
As the primrose spreads so sweetly." 



362 LEipsic. 

brings in its train, and yet of such incon- 
sistencies are we all made up, that I confess 
to the having experienced feelings of con- 
tentment, joy, and pride, in the camp and 
the bivouac, which I may look for again, 
perhaps, in vain. There is such an absence 
of care under your canvass-home, that 
shifts at the trumpet's sound, such pleasures 
in the night of lonely watchfulness, such 
health and lightness in the early march, 
such a proud exciting throb, such high 
hope, — 

" When front to front the banner'd hosts combine, 
Halt ere they close, and form the dreadful line, 
When all is still on death's devoted soil." 

For these emotions, many who regard 
glory as a bright and bursting bubble, 
consent to wear the sword, and learn to 
love it. 

Never, however, I well remember, did I 
curse war more heartily than when, in the 
winter of 1813, I saw baggage-waggon 
after baggage-waggon pass through Verdun, 
laden with pale and sickly French boys, who 
returned wounded and debilitated from this 



POTSDAM. 363 

field of Leipsic, and marked among them 
young lads of gentle birth (the Garde 
cCHonneiir), who had been torn from the 
quiet home reluctantly, to combat against 
the huge and hardy German cuirassiers ; 
and again I felt the like pain when, at a 
later period of the war, I saw a battalion of 
young and beardless children march out of 
Troyes, shouting, from school-boy pride, 
the usual cry of " Vive V Empereur !" but 
guessing, perhaps, themselves, what their 
dejected officers well knew, that they were 
but as lambs going to the sacrifice. 

I am glad to have seen Potsdam, the 
cradle and school of those military tactics, 
and that discipline, of which Frederick the 
Great was the father. It is a barrack still : 
in the yard of the palace recruits are still 
tortured by the drill-sergeant ; and on every 
side you see squads of instruction, and stiff 
figures, moving slowly to the balance- step, 
marching, facing, wheeling, and dressing, 
under smart and severe instructors. I was 
surprised, however, to witness, at the guard- 
mounting, something most informal and 
unmilitary. Just before the last call of 



364 POTSDAM. 

assembly, which brought out the comand- 
ant and all the officers of the garrison, the 
adjutant, or town-major, who had already 
inspected the guards, wheeled them back, 
and marched them past, drums beating 
and drum-major saluting, giving, in fact, 
a regular rehearsal of the grand guard- 
mounting, on the very ground, and within 
three minutes of the appearance of the 
commander and the usual mounting of the 
duties. The Prussian soldiers are certainly 
magnificent young men : if they have a 
fault, as soldiers, it is that, as a body, they 
are far too young ; but they are very hand- 
some, very erect, and clean-limbed : their 
clothing (blue) is admirably made, and 
most becoming. They are clean and smart 
under arms, and steady as a wall. Still it 
is my opinion, and I attentively watched 
their system of drill in many places, that 
we in England have just struck upon 
the happy medium. The laxness of field- 
discipline in France makes the French 
soldier unsteady on parade, and, placing no 
habitual check upon the eager restlessness 
of his character, causes him to be often 



POTSDAM. 365 

dangerously self-willed and insubordinate 
in the field of battle. The severity, on the 
contrary, of German * discipline makes and 
leaves the soldier a mere machine, to ad- 
vance or retreat, charge, fire, stand, or even 
fly, unhesitatingly, when ordered, and only 
when ordered. 

I saw not such a thing on the continent 
of Europe as what we call, and my military 
reader will understand me, a saucy English 
light company, or any thing resembling 
those true old English grenadiers who 
could all sing the old song, with its noisy 
tow, row, rows, in harsh and happy chorus. 
These be the men, and this was the free 
spirit and feeling, which, controlled and 
guided by a firm judicious hand that knew 
when to check the rein, and when to give 
the head, won for England her laurels. 



* It is remarkable that the Prussians never fought 
better than during their " Liberation War," as they 
proudly and justly term it, in 1813, 1814; yet were 
their troops of that time, in all circumstances of com- 
position, drill, and military order, inferior to what they 
had been, and what they are. 



366 POTSDAM. 

Repeatedly I saw on the Continent troops 
of most warlike, brave, and martial ap- 
pearance; but I always felt the truth of 
our ambassador's reply to Frederick : — 
" Think you an equal number of English 
soldiers could be found to beat those men ?" 
— pointing to the elite of his famous guard, 
an elite composed of men of all nations 
remarkable for their fine stature, their 
discipline and their prowess, — said the 
monarch. " Sire, I cannot answer you ; 
but I am sure that half the number would 
try." — That was, is, and will, I hope, ever 
be the character of British soldiers in the 
field. " Dare greatly, do greatly," is a 
glorious motto. 

You cannot deny that Potsdam is a hand- 
some town ; but yet it does not please : it 
is too regular, too tame ; it looks like a 
place ordered to be built, and built to order. 
No private taste has been consulted, no 
private taste has been permitted to exhibit 
itself. The people at Potsdam, be they 
rich or poor, live in handsome barrack- 
rooms ; and, when they put their heads 



POTSDAM. 367 

out of the window, may look up and down 
straight, stately, still streets. 

I went into the church of the court and 
the garrison, to see the tomb of Frederick 
the Great. It is in a kind of cell or cham- 
ber, — plain black marble, unadorned. I 
had thought, and I have for these twenty 
years, that the inscription on his tomb was, 
" Hie Cineres ubique Fama ;" but I did not 
find any thing save his name. However, 
his fame is every where; and it would 
seem that the Prussians are content to live 
on it, for it is ever in their mouths ; it is all 
Frederick le Grand. The history, the an- 
cestral dignity, the military renown of Prus- 
sia, centre in his name. 

Sans Souci is a strange name for a palace ; 
yet here, whatever freedom from care Fre- 
derick could know he enjoyed. It is a 
most sensible building, combining the com- 
forts of a private dwelling and the magni- 
ficent appendages of a royal residence. 
Nothing can be more quiet, more simple, 
indeed, even to a tasteless plainness, than 
the apartments of the king. Nothing 
can be more luxurious than the splendid 



368 POTSDAM. 

double portico ; and a finer gallery for the 
display of his well-chosen collection of 
pictures could hardly have been desired. 
He had a small, still, circular study, filled 
with his favourite authors, — a shady walk 
in his garden for the thoughtful hour. 
The graves of his dogs, the only favourites 
he had the weakness to affect a fondness 
for, were close to his terrace ; and he was 
within sound of the parade-horn, a circum- 
stance as important to him as to the young- 
est subaltern in his guards. 

Was he a happy man this Frederick ? I 
could never think so : he was coldly great : 
severely just in his internal government, 
but to this his sense of justice was strangely 
limited. History refuses the title (and a 
sacred one it is) of Just, to the partitioner of 
Poland. Was he happy ? — the man who 
smiled at religion, smiled at virtue, smiled 
before a battle, and smiled on the carnage- 
covered field ! I think not ; but he made 
Prussia a kingdom, gave her promotion in 
the scale of nations, and she naturally 
reveres his memory as her greatest be- 
nefactor* 



POTSDAM. 369 

The anecdotes of bis private life have a 
great charm for readers, especially the 
young, and are more familiar, indeed, to 
the biography-devouring boy than to the 
older man. We most of us remember when 
we thought him the greatest character that 
ever lived ; to have such power, and to 
live simply, as though he had it not, sounded 
so noble ! — but all this I regard as mere 
taste, a good one, perhaps, yet nothing but 
the strong bent of his will and inclination. 
He had a quick and restless mind, which 
fretted with impatience under a want of 
occupation ; and hence these methodical 
divisions of his day, and his hurrying from 
business to amusements, which were pur- 
sued with the like eagerness for the allotted 
time. The portrait of Gustavus Adolphus 
hangs in his bed-room, — a hero of another 
and a nobler quality : but Frederick was the 
more wonderful man ; and it is felt as a 
privilege to walk about where he did, open 
the books in which he read, sit in his chair, 
look from his window, and touch the small 
chamber-clock, which, they tell you, has 

B B 



370 POTSDAM. 

never again been wound up since the hour 
of his death. 

No traveller fails to visit the chamber 
appropriated to Voltaire, while he resided 
with the King. It is remote, that is, nearly 
at the extremity of the building, and fur- 
nished in the commonest French taste of 
that day, — a strange mixture of tawdriness 
and meanness. Voltaire is one of those 
great geniuses, to whom Providence has 
denied that best, that only, that pure fame, 
the love of posterity. I never heard the 
most extravagant admirer of Voltaire pre- 
tend any affection for the personal cha- 
racter of the author. He never succeeded 
in attaching the heart of a reader : he was 
just the man for Frederick, who looked 
only to the head in others, and thought 
only of the head in his own person. 

His Gallery of Paintings was a noble one. 
There are so many ways of choosing, enjoy- 
ing, and speaking about paintings, that we 
must understand what the possessor's pe- 
culiar taste was, before we give him the 
credit of the collection. The Vertumnus 



POTSDAM. 371 

and Pomona of Leonardo da Vinci, the 
" Ecce Homo" of Raphael, the Sleeping 
Venus of Titian, are considered the three 
master-pieces of this gallery. Nothing can 
be more opposed, each to the other, in sub- 
ject as in style, than these three paintings» 
For my own part, I confess that I gazed 
with much higher satisfaction on some 
of the wonderful conceptions of Rubens, 
and some of the very hallowed and pure 
productions of Vandyke. The Isaac bless- 
ing Jacob of this last painter is a perfect 
picture ; and there is a pendant to it by an 
artist, whose name has dropped out of my 
mind, of Isaac blessing Esau, of which the 
affecting expression is such that the quick 
judgment of the heart at once pronounces 
it a treasure. The new palace is a fine 
building, and exactly adapted for summer 
fetes. I cannot myself admire the hall, 
the walls of which are encrusted with spars 
and crystals. This strange mosaic is to 
me intolerable by the light of day, in a spa- 
cious and lofty saloon ; it suits only with 
the shaded grotto, hollowed beneath the 
rock. The apartments are richly furnished, 
b b 2 



372 BERLIN. 

— and it is altogether a princely pleasure- 
house. 

It is only four German miles from Pots- 
dam to Berlin. I drove through long, 
strait, uniform streets, intersected at right 
angles by others of like appearance. I 
crossed some portion of the city that had 
rather a graver and older (but never an- 
cient) aspect, passed the great palace, 
crossed a bridge, and found myself in a 
most noble imposing street, between the 
finest and most majestic public edifices of 
this capital. The Brandenburgh gate, by 
which this fine street is entered from the 
west, is a very grand object : it is an imi- 
tation of the Propylgeum of Athens, and is 
surmounted by a triumphal car, drawn by 
four spirited horses, the Goddess of Victory 
standing erect in the chariot, and display- 
ing the dark eagle of Prussia. Extending 
about half the length of this wide street is a 
spacious promenade, planted with lime- 
trees and horse-chesnuts. This splendid 
quarter of Berlin is called, from the size 
and beauty of the former, Unter den Linden. 



BERLIN. 373 

Near this I sojourned, in a most comfortable 
hotel, called the City of Rome. 

Certainly the whole of this scene has in 
it so much of grandeur and majesty, that 
you would expect to see splendid equi- 
pages rolling by in constant succession, 
and the wide space divided between rapid 
carriages passing each other in the safe 
arena prepared for them. 

It is not so : you may gaze from your 
window for an hour; as long may you 
stand near the magnificent portal at the 
Brandenburgh gate, — -you will not see 
half-a-dozen carriages in motion. Take the 
hour of the day when they drive out for 
the promenade, on the road to Charlotten- 
burgh, perhaps a dozen or twenty private 
carriages may, at long distances and inter- 
vals, be seen. The vehicles for the convey- 
ance of the public from one quarter of the 
city to the other are small open carriages, 
on four wheels, with a hood, and drawn by 
one horse, having that high wooden collar 
which belongs, in your fancy, to the sledge 
of St. Petersburg!!, Such are the more fre- 
quently passing objects in this street of 
b b 3 



374 BERLIN. 

palaces, — such the carriages that ply in a 
stand close to the first hotel in Berlin. 
There is yet another feature connected 
with them very peculiar : the drivers of 
these sorry conveyances are all neatly 
dressed in a livery of grey, with hats sur- 
mounted by the cockade, and are altogether 
far more cleanly and respectable in their 
appearance than the hackney-coachmen of 
either London, Paris, or Vienna. The 
reader will probably infer from this trifle, 
with myself, that Berlin is regulated like a 
barrack : for, indeed, all the regulations 
which fall under the observation of the 
stranger bespeak a good vigilant interior 
economy, of the military cast. As to the 
city, it seems built upon expectation that 
Prussia will some day or other require such 
a metropolis, and will, when she has made 
her fortune, provide all things conformable 
to the great and extravagant design of the 
builder. 

Will a northern conqueror ever drive 
under the triumphal gate of Brandenburgh? 
The scene is well adapted to a victorious 
entry : a Russian army might halt, and 



BERLIN. 375 

find space for its columns between that gate 
and the royal palace of Prussia. The noble 
and generous patriotism displayed by the 
Prussians, in their " Liberation War," has 
received, perhaps, something of a check, by 
the jealousy with which the government 
watches over that spirit in her youth to 
which she owes, and to which she should 
ever remember that she owes, her political 
existence; all that makes it valuable was, 
in reality, forced upon the crown of Prussia 
by the voice and the deed of the nation. 

Frederick the Great would have frenchi- 
fied his good subjects, had it been possible : 
they were reluctant, and slow to learn the 
lesson. The war of the Revolution, and 
the victories and injuries of Napoleon, 
who violently outraged all their feelings, 
totally effaced the faint traces of French 
taste and French principles, which Fre- 
derick had but lightly engraven on the 
mind of his subjects. They lay breathless 
for the opportune moment to declare them- 
selves true Germans ; and they nobly tri- 
umphed. They are now animated by a 
haughty, I should almost say a vain, spirit : 
b b 4 



376 BERLIN. 

but it is not like what we should call patriot- 
ism. I should say that every Prussian feels 
a sort of esprit de corps : they drink the 
anniversary of victories ; and they forget 
that they ever have been vanquished. It 
was impossible to suppress a smile, in 
walking through the magnificent Saloon of 
Arms in their arsenal, to see, at every yard, 
a clean new French banner suspended, 
things not taken in the field, but of all ages, 
dates, and belonging to all descriptions of 
corps, brought from Paris, as trophies of 
their two visits. However, they may be 
largely forgiven any insult to the French 
arms ; for never did Napoleon appear to 
the eyes of the world so little, so jealous, so 
vindictive, as in his treatment of Prussia, so 
coarse and unknightly as in his mean and 
offensive conduct to her patriot queen. 

One effect of this spirit among the Prus- 
sians is, that, although French is uni- 
versally read and spoken by all their 
educated men, they have entirely discarded 
the use of it in conversation, and can with 
difficulty be induced to speak it, even 
where common courtesy to the foreigner 



BERLIN. 377 

might excuse their departure from a reso- 
lution, the maintaining of which they seem 
to identify both with personal and na- 
tional dignity. It requires a little ma- 
noeuvre to make them talk. I found one, 
which a laughing friend had given me, 
never failing in its success : — when asked 
if you speak German, to say " No ; I am 
sorry to say I do not ; but I regret it the less 
as I well know the Germans to be a highly 
educated people, and all those whom I should 
feel most desirous tobecome acquainted with 
doubtless converse fluently in the French 
language." This made provokingly short, 
or politely and flatteringly lengthened, ac- 
cording to the party, invariably drew them 
out: the foreheads rose, the very mus- 
taches relaxed a something of their pride, 
and, on ail sides, French was poured forth, 
if not with a very pleasing pronunciation, 
still, in general, with a great command of 
language. 

I only remained six days in Berlin. All 
things which the traveller is directed to, as 
worthy his attention, I visited. The palace, 
the arsenal, the museum, and a fine col- 



378 BERLIN. 

lection of pictures *, which have not yet 
been conveniently placed, but are to be 
disposed in a handsome building pre- 
paring for them and such others as are to 
form the National Gallery. I suppose, and 
I almost regret to think, that the collection 
at Sans Souci will be removed from its 
admirable locale there, to adorn the capital. 
The theatres at Berlin are most beautiful : 
I visited them alL The large Opera-house 
is magnificent : I saw a tragedy represented 
there. I was by no means so pleased with 
the performers as with those of Vienna ; 
but it is fair to add, that the piece did not 
excite in me the like interest, nor could I 
follow the subject through. Nevertheless, 
I boldly pronounce them inferior actors to 
those of Vienna ; for when I cannot catch 
the author I look attentively at the stage, 
as I would at a great picture, and at all 
those passages, where in every drama 
effective situations occur, my eye seldom 
fails to satisfy me whether the actor is 
true. The new theatre, which is smaller, 

* Among these, the Marriage of St. Katharine, by 
Julio Romano, is, to my taste, a most exquisite production. 



BERLIN. 379 

is very elegant arid commodious. In an- 
other theatre, also a very good sized and 
convenient one, I was present at the per- 
formance of Cenerentola. The house was 
crowded to excess, and the orchestra was 
superlatively good. At the breaking up, 
the delay caused by the carriages enabled 
me as thoroughly to see a large portion 
of the society of Berlin as a foreigner 
might, who should stand on a Saturday 
night, in May, in the crush-room at our 
Opera-house in the Haymarket : of a truth, 
the contrast is sufficiently great. The 
number of equipages may sound incon- 
sistent with what I have before said, but, 
as I stood near the door, I was enabled 
to see that these were, for the most part, 
hired carriages, and that there were not 
thirty of that class, which belong to the re- 
gular establishment of a nobleman or man of 
fortune. I was most particularly pleased in 
the great theatre, on two occasions, to ob- 
serve the quiet, attentive, and unosten- 
tatious deportment of the young princes, 
although being seated in the royal box, 
a vast and splendid one, fronting the stage, 
they were necessitated to observe the usual 



380 BERLIN. 

forms ; forms, I think, desirable to be kept 
up, and which it is, perhaps, to be re- 
gretted that the King himself so indolently 
evades : he was present in a retired side- 
box. Between the acts they leaned against 
the stove at the back of the royal box, in 
conversation with their aide-de-camps. The 
very instant the performance was about to 
recommence, they came forward quietly to 
their seats, and gave it their full attention : 
their aide-de-camps sat very considerably 
behind them, and near the wall stood several 
of the royal domestics. A prince of blood 
royal, especially in a despotic government, 
should appear as one. A king walking 
about side-by-side with you, with his hands 
behind him, who can do just what he 
pleases with you by a scratch of his pen, is 
a sort of take-in. No, I should say, you 
are a king, a kind and a good one, (for that 
the King of Prussia is,) but still a king, 
and, therefore, pray, my dear man, keep 
your distance. I was much amused by 
two gentlemen near me, speaking of the 
youngest prince: one asking, eagerly, " Why 
he has got the epaulets of a major ; when 
was this? I never heard of this." — " Oh," 



BERLIN. 38 1 

said the other, " he has been promoted 
since the last review ; and I assure you, that 
he is a good promising young officer, and 
understands his duty in the field." — " I dare 
to say he is quite happy now," rejoined the 
other, looking back at him with evident 
satisfaction. There was a something strange 
to the English ear in the importance at- 
tached to his military rank, as if prince 
went for nothing at the age of nineteen. 
However, they are truly a military people ; 
and, indeed, to say the truth, although the 
garrison of Berlin is not very large, from 
the constant appearance of uniforms, and 
soldiers in all places, and at all hours, 
Berlin has the air of a capital occupied 
by some well-behaved foreign force, and 
cheerful and protected under their strict 
discipline. 

But with all their martial display in 
Berlin, they have no guard-mounting, like 
that in St. James's Park ; no show, like that 
troop of the Life or Horse Guards, with 
their polished cuirasses, and long-tailed 
black horses, as they wind down through 
the green avenue of the Park, and after- 



382 BERLIN. 

wards, as, when relieved, the old guard 
rides calmly along Whitehall, and up Re- 
gent-Street. There is nothing like our 
Life or Horse Guards to be seen in any 
capital in Europe. I cannot say the same 
of our Foot Guards ; for, though they are 
very fine troops, they are not picked men. 
They are not an elite ; a guard should be ; 
and should be kept up, and never brought 
into action, or engaged but on an emer- 
gency : men so formed and considered will 
never, never disappoint the expectation 
entertained of them. Look only to the Life 
Guards at Waterloo; men who had, literally, 
passed their lives in stables and atguard-fires. 
I have seen individuals of the Foot Guards, 
on duty at Carlton-House, so ill-made, so 
slouching in their gait, and their fine appoint- 
ments in such dull order, and so ill put on, 
that I have really cast my eye about in fear, 
lest some foreign officers should pass by. I 
particularly recollect on one occasion I saw 
three Russian officers, remarkably fine sol- 
dierly-looking young men, coming down 
Pall-Mail, and the sentinels were relieving : 
out of the whole relief, except the corporal, 



BERLIN. 383 

there was not one fine, smart-looking sol- 
dier. I saw these officers attentively ob- 
serving them, and talking with each other 
in that quiet way, in which, as modest 
gentlemen, they could alone express their 
disappointment. I was so vexed, that, 
knowing what truly fine corps the Guards 
are, in a body under arms, I could hardly 
forbear agoing up and requesting them to 
attend a brigade field-day, before they 
formed any opinion of the British Foot 
Guards : however, I did not, for I quite 
felt with them, that not one of the gre- 
nadiers there ought ever to have been 
received into the corps. I should say, that 
almost the only thing in which our army 
must yield to foreign troops is the set-up, 
the martial carriage, the military tread. 
There is not a finer guard-mounting on 
the Continent than there is always in the 
Dublin garrison. For cleanliness, handling 
of the firelocks, carriage, and marching, 
when actually under arms, our English 
soldiers are equal to any in the world ; but 
the moment thev are dismissed, or the mo- 
ment they march at ease, under a careless 



384 BERLIN, 

non-commissioned officer, or are left to 
stand sentry by themselves, with no reprov- 
ing eye on them, they cease to look like 
what they really are, and can appear. I am 
well aware that there is a moral reason for 
a great deal of this slouching, which must 
always strongly operate on the mind of the 
British soldier while on home-service. The 
foreign grenadier walks about among the 
citizens with an erect carriage and a firm 
tread, proud of being a soldier, and knows 
that the more he makes of himself, by dis- 
playing his person to advantage, and evi- 
dencing his discipline, the more he shall be 
admired. With soldier Jack, it is not so : 
they all know this ; and without there is 
a large group of them together, they really 
are so sensitive, and so alive to ridicule, 
that they dare not walk as they know they 
could and should: a very handsome and 
vain young man, or an ugly, old, brown 
Serjeant, are the only exceptions. There is 
nothing the common people in England, 
even to the children, so much delight in 
as the lowering and laughing at all dis- 
play of pride in a common soldier : they 



BERLIN. 385 

have many a saying, and many a trick, to 
provoke him with. I have often, from a 
window, seen and smiled at this kind of 
thing. " Heads up, soldier !" uttered by 
a little ragged urchin of a chimney-sweeper, 
will disconcert many a soldier for the 
length of a street. " Lord, what a fine 
fellow I am !" and many such phrases, will 
do the like ; whereas by a simple lounging 
gait they escape it all. It would be dif- 
ficult to explain this to a foreigner, and 
make him enter into it ; but there is not a 
British soldier, from the Duke of York to 
the young drum-boy, who is not aware of 
the thing, and the mass of the common 
people know it also. 

Although the appearance of the Prussian 
soldiers is very pleasing, from their youth, 
their fine figures, their becoming uniform, 
and their proud erect marching, yet I must 
say, that, to speak as a soldier, the old, 
brown, weather-stained Austrians seem far 
better adapted for the toil and the work of 
war ; and I think the time will yet come 
when Prussia may repent of a system, 
which seems to me ill calculated to form 

c c 



386 BERLIN. 

an army. Austria could take the field 
to-morrow with veteran forces ; Prussia 
would bring youthful spirits, among whom 
the march, the camp, the scanty fare, and 
Suwarrow's curse, the hospital, would soon 
make greater ravages than the enemies 
arrayed against her. 

Times and modes have so changed, that 
it is diverting to contrast, the present mili- 
tary costume of Prussia with that of the 
past age, which you may do at any hour of 
the day, for Berlin is full of the statues of 
the great officers of her more celebrated 
times. There are enough in Wilhelms- 
platz alone to form a council of war, and 
chief among them old Ziethen, whom I 
thank the sculptor for having represented 
in the uniform of the old black hussars. 
There the old boy stands ready to mount 
his horse, and just as he may have looked 
after the brilliant action of Tein*, when the 
Prussian army, dispirited by long toils, 
rushed from their tents, shouting, " Long 
live Ziethen and his hussars !" The 

* By which he delivered the rear of the Prussian 
army on their precipitate retreat from Bohemia in the 
disastrous campaign of 1744. 



BERLIN. 387 

hussar uniform (excepting the long shape- 
less waist) is less altered than any ; and, 
I doubt not, many a Prussian hussar half- 
salutes that statue to this day. But nothing 
can look more quaint and comic than the 
stiff figure, low hat, broad coat, and but- 
toned gaiters of Prince Anhalt of Dessau, 
in the square before the palace. If you 
could animate him, he would immediately 
commence caning these, to his eye, de- 
generate brown-haired boys, who cherish 
on either side something of the vain and 
waving curl, and who seldom pass him 
without a smile. 

The busiest part of Berlin is the Konig- 
Strasse : here, and in the square behind the 
palace, are all the principal shops : under 
the arcades, in this last place, are those 
which appear to be the best supplied and 
most frequented. I noticed in the frontis- 
piece to the literary almanacks, in the 
booksellers' windows, the heads of Byron 
and Walter Scott, in the highest places 
of honour, after Goethe and Schiller, and 
this in a circle of medallion heads, con- 
taining a dozen, shows a feeling towards 
c c 2 



388 BERLIN. 

England and English literature, which, in- 
stead of our receiving haughtily as a tri- 
bute, should lead us to reflect, that there 
must be a something like-minded to us in the 
German, or he would not lavish upon us 
all this adulation. Nor is their acquaint- 
ance with our literature confined to that 
which is popular in the passing day, they 
read back into our better age ; and the 
names of English poets, philosophers, and 
historians, are familiar to the ears of the 
educated German. The students in Berlin 
may be seen, in large groups, near the hall 
of the University at their class-hours, and 
met solitary, or in pairs, in their return 
through the streets ; their books open, or 
tucked under their arms, and their faces 
looking occupied, or relieved, but always 
with the true student air. They much 
resemble, to my eye, the class-groups whom 
I have seen hurrying about the old town of 
Edinburgh, save the military forage-cap. 
They appear to claim, and avail themselves 
of the privilege of boyhood long after they 
have grown into men : they are slovenly, 
hair unkempt, and hands inky ; and this 



BERLIN. 389 

it is, I think, which does so revolt our 
English university-men when they first 
come in contact with German scholars. 

The coffee-house aspect of Berlin is, like 
that of many other large cities in Germany, 
south and north, idle and profligate ; but 
that traveller would be deceived, I think, 
who should judge of the private life of Ger- 
mans from that peculiar class of persons, 
which form, as it were, a race of them- 
selves, and are found floating on the sur- 
face of society all over that extensive coun- 
try. There are, then, in Germany, a vast 
number of men, who seem to live only 
among cards and billiard-balls, — a mark, 
and one of the worst, which a very long 
war, and long intercourse with the French 
armies, have left behind. A great number 
of these are unemployed military men, of 
originally idle and dissipated habits : others 
are of a class which made money enough 
during the war, in their trades and occu- 
pations, to put on the coats without the cha- 
racters of gentlemen, and who live loosely 
about, at hotels and restaurateurs, where 
they are little known as to early history, 
c c 3 



390 BERLIN. 

and welcome for what they spend. Con- 
nected with such classes, and no less with 
the common wants and necessary evils of 
large cities, is all that unhappy crowd of 
fair and frail beauties, which is to be found, 
most certainly, as largely scattered about 
the city of Berlin as Vienna. This a Prus- 
sian, who knew both capitals well, owned 
to me, and stated that he remembered the 
time when Berlin was most notorious, as a 
theatre of dissipation, throughout all Eu- 
rope. He attributed it, in a great mea- 
sure, to the then frequent presence of large 
numbers of the Russian and Polish nobles, 
who used to pass their winters in Berlin, by 
their example, and the wealth they ex- 
pended, greatly corrupting the capital, and 
introducing great licentiousness, not so 
much among the settled inhabitants, as 
among those who visited it, allured by the 
prospect of gaiety and unrestrained indul- 
gence. They no longer frequent Prussia ; 
and if they did, their minds and manners 
are no longer what they were. " No," said 
the Prussian ; " what we dislike the Vien- 
nese for is, that they are so ignorant and 



BERLIN. 391 

contented, so fond of good eating and 
drinking and so indifferent to the culti- 
vation of their minds." I am, in neither in- 
stance, for one minute supposing or allud- 
ing to the profligacy of private life, of which 
I can know nothing, although I am far from 
thinking that the divorces ifi Prussia are a 
fair test of the general corruption of a 
society. These divorces often occur where 
there has been no previous criminality; and 
however it may be regretted that the mar- 
riage-tie is so dangerously light, yet being 
so by the institutions of the country, all 
unhappy marriages are made public by the 
act of the dissolution. I detest the system 
heartily 5 and may the marriage- vow in Old 
England ever run in that noble and affect- 
ing strain, " For better for worse, for richer 
for poorer, in sickness and in health, until 
death do part." 

There is a woman's grave near Berlin, 
which all travellers do fondly and rever- 
ently visit. None needs to be informed of 
the life, the fortunes, and the fate of the 
late and beloved Queen of Prussia, — be- 
loved, not only by a devoted husband, but 
c c 4 



392 BERLIN. 

by an entire people, who respected her 
pure example, as a wife and a mother, and 
adored her patriot spirit as their queen. 
The subject of indignities, which never have 
been, and never will be, forgiven to the 
iron Napoleon ; and the witness of public 
calamities, which, although they could not 
subdue her generous and royal mind, cor- 
roded the inward principle of life, stole the 
bloom from her youthful cheek, the light 
from her fair eyes, bowed down her beau- 
tiful form* broke her young heart, and laid 
her in the tomb. 

This tomb is in the garden of Char- 
lottenburgh. Acquainted with it by no 
previous description, I left the palace of 
Charlottenburgh, and walked down the gar- 
den alone, the person in attendance hav- 
ing pointed out the direction, and pro- 
mising to follow with the key. It was not 
without surprise that I came suddenly, 
among trees, upon a fair white Doric temple. 
I might, and should* have deemed it a 
mere adornment of the grounds, — a spot 
sacred to silence, or the soft-breathed song ; 
but the cypress and the willow declare it 



BERLIN. 393 

as a habitation of the dead. There was 
an aged invalid busily occupied about the 
portal, in sweeping away the dead and 
yellow leaves, which gathered there, and 
which the November blast, in mockery of 
his vain labour, drove back upon it, in 
larger and louder eddies. He shook his 
grey head at me, and, not seeing any 
body with me, warned me petulantly away. 
Nay, when the guardian came, it might 
be fancy, but he seemed ill pleased that 
the sanctuary should be violated. Upon 
a sarcophagus of white marble lay a sheet ; 
and the outline of a human form was 
plainly visible beneath its folds. It seemed 
as though he removed a winding-sheet, to 
show a beloved corse, when the person 
with me reverentlv turned it back, and 
displayed the statue of his queen. It is 
a portrait-statue recumbent, said to be a 
perfect resemblance, — not as in death, but 
when she lived to bless and be blessed. 
Nothing can be more calm and kind than 
the expression of her features. The hands 
are folded on the bosom ; the limbs are 
sufficiently crossed to show the repose 



394 BERLIN. 

of life. She does but sleep, — she scarce 
sleeps ; — her mind and heart are on her 
sweet lips. It is the work of Rauch, and 
the sculptor may, indeed, be proud. He 
has given to his widowed king a solace 
for his life. Here the King often comes, 
and passes long hours alone; here he 
brings her children annually, to offer gar- 
lands at her grave. These hang in withered 
mournfulness above this living image of 
their departed mother ; and each year sees 
them renewed. 

Even a stranger might sit soothed for 
hours by the side of this marble form, it 
breathes such purity, such peace. I wish 
it were more the custom in these days 
to place the portrait-statue recumbent on 
the monument of the dead. It is the 
finest kind of memorial : nor less so, I 
think, even where, as in the middle ages, 
it is allowed to approach to the appear- 
ance of the corse, provided the features 
be preserved, and the general execution, 
nature : the fillet round the temples, the 
cheeks slightly collapsed, and the limbs 



BERLIN. 395 

stretched out in the stony rigidity of 
death, have a most affecting and sublime 
character. 

As soon as we had left the temple, the 
old man, fobbing his disregarded fee with- 
out looking at it, returned to his strange 
and useless task, with all that wasted dili- 
gence which often marks the activity of the 
second childhood ; and as I looked back I 
saw the disturbed leaves circling round his 
aged head. How strange, how mysterious 
are the decrees of Heaven ! — youth and 
beauty lie buried in the early grave, — 
lone and withered age lives on ! 

An Englishman feels little tempted to 
pass a winter in the capital of Prussia. 
The stove, although I admit that it spreads 
a more equal and comfortable heat through 
an apartment, is no substitute for the red 
glow of the companionable fire : you cannot 
turn your back to it with satisfaction ; you 
miss that sceptre of domestic rule, the 
poker ; and you are glad, at least I was, to 
hasten home. 

I have never in my life traversed so 



396 BERLIN. 

wretched a road as that which leads from 
Berlin to Hamburgh ; and I think the man 
who should enter Germany from this latter 
point would, of necessity, throw so dark 
a colour on his canvass, that his whole 
picture of the country would partake the 
gloom. It is a journey to be endured, just 
as you would a punishment, or a surgical 
operation. Through the long night the 
eye will never close, the head will never 
cease to ache, and, from the successive and 
continuous jolts, although the carriage be 
ever so well padded, the shoulders will be 
bruised and blackened. A great deal of it 
is laid down in timber to prevent vehicles 
from sinking immovable in the sand, and 
the passing these portions is a fatigue very 
far beyond a day's journeying on the dro- 
medary. The houses of call are wretched. 
At one of them, in a wild sandy spot, 
among forests of fir, I heard the sound of 
music, and looking in, through a cloud of 
smoke in a small miserable apartment, so 
hot, that I could not remain five minutes, 
I found a collection of figures, cast in na- 



HAMBURGH. 397 

tare's most coarse and ungainly mould, 
waltzing. Women, brown and broad, with 
heavy shoes, and coarse stuff gowns and 
petticoats, waltzing with clowns as plain 
and rough, only looking, from their garb, 
less large — less masculine I might say. It 
was good this : — it was not fit that I should 
have left Germany without being jolted 
over this execrable road, or without having 
some of my bright and soft recollections of 
the German waltz corrected, or rather dis- 
turbed by the sight of a group, and of 
movements, which no pen or pencil could 
faithfully depict. 

It was a dirty, drizzling, dull, cold day 
when I entered Hamburgh, and the very 
first question I asked when I got out of the 
carriage, was, " Is there a packet at Cux- 
haven, and when does she sail for Eng- 
land?" That evening I dropped down 
the river in a Hamburgh boat; the next 
morning I was sailing past Heligoland ; on 
the night of that day, slept through a 
gale boisterously favourable, on the North 
sea, and anchored the third evening in 
Harwich roads. 



398 CONCLUSION. 

The conclusion of this light volume 
must, I feel, be that in which nothing is 
concluded. I was desirous of seeing Ger- 
many for myself, and I have seen it. I 
have only ventured to give brief notices of 
what I saw, and to mingle with them those 
reflections, which the scenes I looked upon 
suggested to my mind. 

Germany had long been, to my fancy, 
the region of romance ; her warrior po- 
pulation, and her fair-eyed women, had 
filled up many a picture, painted by the 
mind's pencil in her musing hours. I had 
already seen all her armies in review array ; 
I wanted to see them scattered about their 
native country in such groups and occu- 
pations as belong to peace. 

I wanted to look upon those women of 
Germany, to whose lot it has not unfre- 
quently fallen to conceal to-day a van- 
quished friend, to receive to-morrow a 
victorious foe ; — to succour the wounded 
of all parties ; to have her heart assailed, 
as woman, in a thousand ways, and to be 
placed in situations, where love could only 
breed despair. 



CONCLUSION. 399 

I wanted to see those German youths, 
who, in the strange and frequent changes 
of alliance in their distracted country, found 
the tie of private friendship suddenly bro- 
ken by the voice of war ; and the man 
whom their soul loved opposed to them in 
the front of batle. 

The theatre of these battles, the site of 
the camps where contending armies lay, of 
the cities in which they were cantoned, the 
amusements which the day's halt gave them 
opportunities of sharing for a first, a last, 
an only time, the promenades on which 
they may have walked, and the gardens in 
which their bands may have gathered in- 
voluntary groups of listeners during the 
short sojourn ; — these, and such like, were 
my trifling objects, and, perhaps, it was not 
altogether without a secret wish to gather 
materials of scenery and of portraits which 
might give truth and interest to some pro- 
posed fictions ; for military life would weave 
well into the woof, and have shades as well 
as lights, dark as the lover of peace could 
desire them to be, and bright as to the 



'lu \ 

\ 

400 CONCLUSION. If 

brave, the ardent, and the young, they ever 
must appear. Whether I shall ever venture 
on the task, I know not. " Man proposeth, 
God disposeth." 

u What, though the radiance which was once ; so bright 
Be now for ever taken from my sight, 
Though nothing can bring back the hour 
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower ; 

We will grieve not, rather find 

Strength in what remains behind, 

In the primal sympathy 

Which having been must ever be, 

In the soothing thoughts that spring 

Out of human suffering, 

In the faith that looks through death, 
In years that bring the philosophic mind." 

Wordsworth. 



THE END. 



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